ACORN’S PETER RUSSELL: ‘QUALITY NOT QUANTITY’ FOR PROFITS
November 16th 2007 06:32
Biotech Daily
Wednesday November 14, 2007
Daily news on ASX-listed biotechnology companies
Wednesday November 14, 2007
Daily news on ASX-listed biotechnology companies
* ASX, BIOTECHS UP: APOLLO UP 12%, NEUREN DOWN 6%
* APOLLO NANOPARTICLES READY FOR PHASE I ORAL INSULIN TRIAL
* ELI LILLY BEGINS PHASE III ACRUX TRANSDERMAL ANIMAL TRIAL
* ACORN’S PETER RUSSELL: ‘QUALITY NOT QUANTITY’ FOR PROFITS
* ANADIS, HADASIT JOIN FOR INFLAMMATORY, CANCER VENTURE
* DIABETES VACCINE CENTRE MOVES TO SYDNEY’S GARVAN INSTITUTE
* OFF MESSAGE? BIO-MELBOURNE SHARPENS YOUR PROFILE
* PROGEN CHAIRMAN STEPHEN CHANG TO STEP ASIDE
* ALCHEMIA APPOINTS ONCOLOGY ADVISORY BOARD
THE MARKET
Eighteen of the Biotech Daily Top 40 stocks were up, 12 stocks fell, eight traded unchanged and two were untraded.
Apollo was best, up 2.5 cents or 11.9 percent to 23.5 cents with 212,100 shares traded, followed by Phylogica up two cents or 9.52 percent to 23 cents.
Neuren led the falls, down two cents or 6.25 percent to 30 cents on small volumes.
subscribe to Biotech Daily at the link above
ACORN CAPITAL
Acorn Capital’s biotechnology fund manager Peter Russell says “quality not quantity” is the way to outperform benchmark indices.
He said from 2000-2007 Acorn Capital had returned an average 27 percent per annum, 10 percent above the 17 percent per annum benchmark for Australian microcaps.
Acorn Capital started with $20 million then received a further $500 million and has grown to funds under management of $1.2 billion.
Mr Russell told industry executives and media at the Life Sciences Lunch Club in Melbourne that there was “nothing missing” for a number of Australian biotechnology companies despite a poor share price performance.
He said there had been “an influx of commercially focused, switched-on internationally recognized managers” making the sector far more interesting for investors.
He said companies like Pharmaxis and Peplin had “ticked all the boxes” and others like Cytopia, Starpharma, Patrys, Vegenics, Peptech and others would all go forward, despite being “friendless in the capital markets”.
Mr Russell said there were two positive converging trends: “Australian biotechs are very highly rated overseas … along with dwindling supplies of new products from the major pharmaceutical companies.”
“Large bureaucracies are not very good at innovation,” Mr Russell said.
He said Cytopia hit four major milestones without a change in share price and said the three main reasons were that it did not have a phase II trial, oncology was a hard area to get a drug through and the JAK (kinase) inhibitor was hard for investors to understand.
“We’re more comfortable being there than not being there at the moment,” he said.
Mr Russell said Cytopia was a “world leader” in kinase inhibitors and if the company did get to market it would hold “an extraordinary position”. He said Cytopia had a “very powerful drug discovery platform”.
He said Acorn Capital was not interested in market trends, but was a dedicated microcap fund working outside the ASX top 250 companies, investing in companies with a market capitalization below $600 million.
He said the fund invested in “no more than 80 companies, because it forces you to concentrate on your ranking”.
He said the future of Australian biotechnology microcaps was “very exciting”.
Subscribe to Biotech Daily at the link above
| 48 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog