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Author Archive: David Thomas, CFA
David is currently Director of Industry Research and Analysis at BIO in Washington, DC. In this role, he is responsible for financial statistics and analysis of the biotechnology sector and contributes to BIO’s policy activities as well as programming for BIO’s investor conferences. Prior to joining BIO, he was a research scientist at the J. Craig Venter Institute working on the “synthetic cell” team led by Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith. Before his role in synthetic biology, David worked as a scientist in drug discovery at Amgen, Millennium, and Novartis. His scientific expertise is in protein engineering, enzymology, and synthetic biology. David has earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and holds a master’s degree in biochemistry.
Latest Posts
Risk/Reward Favored Small & Micro Caps in 2009
For US biotechs in 2009, the smaller the company’s market capitalization, the higher the return…
2009 – A Big Year for the BTK
The Amex Biotech Index, the BTK, outpaced its peer, the Nasdaq Biotech Index, by 29% and was 22% above the SP500. Most of this can be attributed to 3rd quarter performance when Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) released P3 data for their antibody drug for Lupus. HGSI gained 555% in 3Q09, and the impact on the 20 company BTK can be seen in the lower bar chart. * *It should be noted that both major Read More >
Small Biotechs Spending Less
The median and mean operational cash spending for small public US biotechs (less than 250 employees) is down 37% and 42% respectively, since the 1st Quarter of 2008. Company cut backs have shown up in the lay-off numbers as well as in the number of drug development projects put on hold. These quarterly numbers give a sense of the direction. For a look at the annual data, here is how spending breaks down for the Read More >
1 in 4 Biotechs Above 100% – Waterfall Chart YTD
Year to date, 27% of biotech stocks have doubled in price. 65% are in positive territory in 2009, a strong contrast to the YTD data last year:
The Rise and Fall of Undervaluation
If “price to cash” is a usable metric for fair value of a risky biotech (i.e. valuation of a biotech vs what its cash balance is at the bank), then the cheap times are long gone. Back at the end of 2008 we had a record 24% of biotechs trading below cash. Investors were making the assumption that the previous reported cash balance was already being spent and additions to the balance were in jeopardy. Read More >
