I’m leaning strongly towards finally starting a position,
The deed is done…and in conjunction with my starter position (under 2.3%; not a medium position like Saul’s, which I would guess is likely in the 5-8% range), I have finally expunged Under Armor from my portfolio. UA had been my worst-performing Motley Fool recommendation by quite a bit.
I flushed UA when I heard that teenagers preferred other brands.
Sounds like 214 especially could have a massive impact on the world…
Hi volfan. And that’s if we’re only half right.
in which case the present $105-106/share will have been a bargain
That’s the way I’m thinking. It may require some patience though.
Saul, maybe you want to wait until the end of the month, but what existing position(s) did you reduce to buy a mid position in NKTR?
Saul, maybe you want to wait until the end of the month, but what existing position(s) did you reduce to buy a mid position in NKTR?
I’d rather wait, because I didn’t have good reasons for trimming any of them, I just liked the idea of getting into Nektar better, and I don’t want to have anyone panic because I may have trimmed one of his or her favorite stocks.
Saul
Saul,
Now I’m panicking because you won’t tell us…okay, just sold everything. I feel better now.
I’m kidding, not panicking, but I am eager to see which you trimmed (I trimmed a couple as well and want to see if I’m learning the Saul way!).
-Austin
You really should do you own DD and not as Saul has mentioned on numerous occasions to blindly just follow him, it puts him on the spot.
It’s not about blindly following him. But not all of us have a finance background or the ability to evaluate companies on our own. Part of being a smart investor is knowing what you don’t know. And that means making a judgment about whose advice to follow… whether that’s Saul, David and Tom, Warren Buffet etc.
You can definitely get into trouble when you think you are smarter than you are. I am very grateful for this board and use it as an educational tool. I’m not the smartest but I do have some degree of determination and try to judge companies myself and see if it match’s up with what some more experienced/smarter guy’s have on here. Not being in the investing business this is a GREAT opportunity to learn! So do your self a favor and don’t take the easy road, do the work and take advantage of the situation. Hopefully someday I can be so confident with my results and analysis to help out too.
In my post you referred to I said I wasn’t adding anymore for now. Well, for now ended. It is now a 5.8% position for me after adding at $103. After much thought, I believe this is a good place to buy in given that the Bristol deal provides a decent psychological “floor” if you will, given their purchase price at $102.60. It may go sideways for a while from here barring any news. Heck, there may even be a better entry position along the way and if there is I’ll likely add more but will limit it to 8% or less going forward until we start to see some more data. I sold some Netflix and Amazon which were both at or near all time highs to add to my Nektar position. Those Netflix shares were hard to depart with as I’ve owned them since 2006 (and it’s still a 18% position for me) but that’s how much I like Nektar.
MC
Long all stocks mentioned
Congrats on sticking with a big NFLX position all this time. I bought in 2008 and more in 2011 (on the dip), but sold half in 2015 figuring it was overpriced. D’oh! It will take a lot to get me to sell the other half. When I want to buy something I don’t even consider selling it.
From Saul’s post
“Nektar and Bristol are continuing to enroll patients in the expansion cohorts in the Phase 2 stage of the PIVOT trial across multiple tumor indications.”
So I went hear to see what a pivotal trial is:
http://www.ich.org/fileadmin/Public_Web_Site/Training/GCG_-_…
If I am understanding this correctly a pivotal trial will make a drug available to market while phase III trials are ongoing, is that correct? Or more directly I am wondering how long it might be before this will be approved by the FDA.
I am also trying to determine how common failures are when a drug reaches this point, still researching that.
LF
so I went here not hear
My lame excuse is that it’s early HERE
LF
I just bought in a starter 2% position. My rationale was threefold:
This is what he told me…
(Their drugs) activate T cells and make them grow … to attack cancers, so overall it’s a good long-term strategy … I think that these new drugs are actually antibodies, which are large proteins (not small chemical molecules) that stimulate T cells.
With my luck, I bought at today’s high - but maybe my next 2% purchase will be below $100 :-).
…Marc
Apologies for the shortness and lack of additional insight that will be included in this post, but I saw that Nektar is presenting at the Cowen Medical conference that is occurring this week. Per their IR webpage, they present tomorrow morning at 8 am.
http://ir.nektar.com/events-and-presentations/events
Could be a slight potential catalyst, I would think, depending on what all their presentation includes.
Louisiana Fool,
I think you are correct that a pivotal phase II trial could lead to approval for clinical use. I think the results have to be quite compelling since they are foregoing a (hopefully) rigorously powered comparison with either placebo or an active agent.
Clinical trials site: https://clinicaltrials.gov/
Page for this trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02983045?term=PIVOT&a…
From the trial page:
Actual Study Start Date : October 2016
Estimated Primary Completion Date : October 2018
Estimated Study Completion Date : October 2018
I am not familiar enough with studies / approval to know if anything is likely to come out before then.
Dave
Saul,
Thank you for the informative (if not passionate) write-up on NKTR. It is clear you are experienced in this field, and can use that experience in your drug/company/investment analysis. Very interesting, and trying to assess/justify my own investment thesis further.
After I read your post, and the resultant thread, I was feeling there was a relative void of financial data/projections supporting the investment thesis. When reading your investment rationales, I am accustomed to hearing you reference the company’s financial model, results and run rate as the core backbone of your investment thesis. Unless I am missing something, I do not see that type of data in your investment dialogue for NKTR. I do realize that is somewhat par for the course in biotech/pharma investing.
This is not to say you ignored the financial analysis, or are acting less than the logical investor you are, but I thought I would ask about how you are thinking about your financial analysis and a 3-5X+ return on this investment. I remember back when many of us invested, perhaps aspirationally, in Solazyme. There was much commercialization and financial execution pending, and the investment itself was not dissimilar to earlier stage biotech investing. I reference that investment not to suggest this has those speculative traits, or to suggest I invest in more proven, later stage companies as I most certainly do not (as TSLA, OKTA, AYX, ANET, UBNT, SHOP, BZUN are some of my current core investments). I am rather wondering how to think about NKTR’s current valuation (>$16.5B) in relation to the company’s pending commercialization of its pipeline and regualtory risk. I am trying to better grasp the path for our stock investment’s material appreciation from here. Ultimately I too would love to complete my analysis and conclude that the valuation is cheap now given the (a) massive potential of its drugs, pipeline and (b) Bristol’s enormous investment, but still feeling like I to model out the financial reality and potential more before pulling the trigger.
Hope this makes sense and thanks again for your willingness to share your investment decision and context.
Vic
This is not to say you ignored the financial analysis, or are acting less than the logical investor you are, but I thought I would ask about how you are thinking about your financial analysis and a 3-5X+ return on this investment.
Hi Vic,
Little bio-techs are never more than a small part of my portfolio, and since they usually have little or no revenue except grants and up-front payments from large pharmas, I do actually ignore the financial numbers and invest based on how successful I think the company can be. (And I can always change my mind).
Best,
Saul
Little bio-techs are never more than a small part of my portfolio, and since they usually have little or no revenue except grants and up-front payments from large pharmas, I do actually ignore the financial numbers and invest based on how successful I think the company can be. (And I can always change my mind).
Saul,
So in Nektar’s case, did I infer somewhat correctly that your present thinking is that NKTR-214 could end up being a true game-changer in the treatment of cancer (by way of some of the human body’s own defense/repair mechanisms with cell killing)?
Saul’s comment: The abscopal effect is a phenomenon in the treatment of metastatic cancer, where localized treatment of a base tumor causes not only a shrinking of the treated tumor, but also a shrinking of metastases throughout the body. This is very exciting results!!!
Is the abscopal effect being observed with NKTR-214 a big part of why you re-opened this position? Weren’t you an M.D. before your 1996 retirement?
Thanks,
volfan84
Weren’t you an M.D. before your 1996 retirement?
Yes, but I had nothing to do with cancer treatment, and no specialized knowledge about it. To me it’s common sense:
In preclinical, a single intra-tumoral dose of NKTR-262, administered in combination with NKTR-214, resulted in complete abscopal effects in multiple tumor models.
Read it! What that means is that in their animal studies a single does of Nektar’s two drugs, delivered into the tumor, results in COMPLETE elimination of the main tumor, AND ALL the metastases throughout the body!!! And in multiple different kinds of tumors!
That’s the holy grail of cancer treatment! No one has ever had results like that. Who cares what their finances are? This could be the big one! To me it’s worth a speculation. Sure it’s just in animals so far, but we’re animals too.
Best,
Saul