Alas, I have not contributed many posts this year and I appreciate the follows and comments. I’ve switched gears a bit and have found myself in a situation where blogging on a company or a drug could be considered a conflict of interest. Devices and diagnostics are probably OK, but I don’t have as much fun in that space. Too bad I am not quite savvy enough to truly become a ghost in the machine!

I am disappointed that this is just the fourth post of the year, but if I may be a little defensive, there aren’t too many solid long-term investment opportunities in publicly-traded biotech companies, at least within my price range. Lots of trades, though.

Perhaps, a quick retrospective look at what the Big Boys thought were interesting…worth at least a half billion or more.

Here’s a list* from Current Partnering with deals in 2012 thus far:

*Top M&A deals of 2012 valued at over US$500 MM.
Included are drug-related acquisitions only

Interesting list.  There are five Big Boys (four publicly-traded pharmas, one private healthcare) in $GSK, $BMY, $AZN, Takeda and Bausch and Lomb (private), one Big Bio ($AMGN) and one mid-cap speciality pharma ($JAZZ) all going out for dinner. Is it surprising? No, not really. With patent cliffs and lost revenues, these deals are just part of the game and it is getting hotter.

Setting aside valuation considerations, most of the deals listed here make sense…I could build a good story around each asset to sell to my investors. There are two exceptions, as indicated in red above.

First. Benlysta, what’s my name again? I haven’t studied $HGSI in any depth recently, but this is what I know. This is a company with close to a $Billion in debt, a drug that is only mildly efficacious and does not work in a clinical indication (lupus nephritis) or in an ethnic population (African-American women), where a significant patient population resides, and has a small biodefense contract. And to top it off, they recently implemented a poison pill to ward off GSK. Huh? You want to play hardball? $GENZ, you are not. I hope I’m wrong and missing something, but this meal is not being served.

And then there is Takeda – does anyone else feel that they are are going to get a bit of indigestion after taking a bite out of this? $800M for Colcrys, an already approved generic drug (colchicine) that now has fulfilled a FDA wish for clinical validation for established therapies. All we need now is for someone to buy KV Pharma’s Makena. Heck, it is an approved drug. Anyone? Anyone?

Oddly, enough, I feel like eating now…thanks for stopping by.