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GILD - Gilead Science


Wilson-TPC

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I was going to make fun of the allocation reason (they say because it's in a quickly changing industry) since it defeats the idea of their thesis (that it's already priced in all that potential adolesence) but that's just typical asset management for you.  It's Whitney Tilson syndrome. No balls, and no conviction behind ideas they supposedly spend a lot of time on.

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OT: So you guys don't like Tom Gayner either? http://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=MKL

 

Bonus question for Picasso: so money managers should be YOLO like Bill Ackman: 5 ~20% positions where one of them blows up and their results go to crap? ;) http://www.dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=psc

 

Disclosure: I am crappy investor with a lot of <1% positions.

 

This probably should be moved out of GILD thread.

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This thread is so dead that I doubt anyone cares about being off topic a bit.  Tom Gayner is fine, nothing against him.  I think all his small positions are mostly trackers?  I don't understand the point of trackers either.  But that's another topic.

 

I don't think there is any issue with being YOLO if you're able to admit when you're wrong and practice much better risk management.  Ackman lost all sense of risk management when it was clear that VRX wasn't the story he was trying to spin. 

 

I'm mostly poking fun at that investment letter because it states all the reasons why their future cash flows are much better than a 6-7x multiple deserves.  At that point does it even matter that it's a biotech?  But they use biotech as a reason to keep the position small.  That's like saying in 2011 "Google has a great business that is worth more than 15x 2011 earnings.  Let me outline all the reasons why.  But it's a tech company and that stuff changes so we're only going to buy 1%."  So either the reasons they outline have no conviction behing them (in which case why bother listing them) or they have Tilson syndrome or a low hit rate, in which case why bother listening to what they have to say.

 

I know.. I'm a tough audience but it's fun to make fun of other managers when you're "anonymous."

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  • 3 weeks later...
(BFW) Gilead Reaches 2-Year Low as WSJ Highlights Glaxo HIV Plan s

 

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Gilead Reaches 2-Year Low as WSJ Highlights Glaxo HIV Plans

2016-08-29 18:37:11.681 GMT

 

 

By Jeremy R. Cooke

    (Bloomberg) -- Gilead Sciences down as much as 2.7% to lowest intraday since May 2014 after a Wall Street Journal article Sunday featured ViiV Healthcare’s dolutegravir as part of a potential 2-drug HIV regimen.

 

  * NOTE: Aug. 16, ViiV Healthcare Starts Phase 3 Testing of

    Two-Drug HIV Treatment

    * ViiV majority owned by GlaxoSmithKline; Pfizer, Shionogi

      have minority stakes

  * Piper Jaffray (overweight on GILD) in note today

    “strongly” doubts the HIV field “will rush to a novel

    paradigm any time soon,” as advantage of 2-drug vs standard

    3-drug regimen is “minimal,” while costs of HIV resistance

    are “very high”

    * “Don’t expect perfection” from a “value stock,”

      Piper says of GILD, while acknowledging that mgmt could

      do a better job of convincing investors it’s “pulling

      all the appropriate levers”

  * RBC (outperform) also attributes recent GILD weakness to

    increasing concern over q/q declines in HCV prescriptions

    and their effect on 3Q results and full-year forecast

  * NOTE: U.S. retail sales of hepatitis C drugs fell 1.41% in

    week ended Aug. 19, as Harvoni dropped 5.5%: data compiled

    earlier today by Symphony Health Solutions

  * GILD shares down 23% YTD vs S5HLTH index up 1.6%

  * 15 buys, 12 holds, 0 sells, avg PT $104: Bloomberg data

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I was going to make fun of the allocation reason (they say because it's in a quickly changing industry) since it defeats the idea of their thesis (that it's already priced in all that potential adolesence) but that's just typical asset management for you.  It's Whitney Tilson syndrome. No balls, and no conviction behind ideas they supposedly spend a lot of time on.

 

Count me in as an investor with no balls. Lot's of small positions, as I typically like to keep the allocation to 5% or less for every single stock. I can say from experience that this diworsificationnhas kept me alive. It's easy to make mistakes and it is fairly easy to make 2 big mistakes at the same time, since investing ideas coming from the same brain are somewhat correlated. If you only have 5 positions, and 2 of them are a bust, then you could be down 40%, which is a 2008/2009 style crash.

 

Going back to Gilead, that would probably around a 3% allocation for me as well, because I think there are quite some risks there. I do agree that the stock is cheap, and their management has over time shown that they are smart and know how to develop best in class products, both in house, or from acquisitions. So, I think that in all likelihood, the drug pipeline is worth quite a bit. For a typical pharma, the pipeline of products is around 50% of the NPV and that is why itmis so hard to value the,. For Biotechs, it's often 70-100% (the latter if they haveno products yet), so you rally have to understand the pipeline and the trials that they are running, plus assess the science. the latter is way beyond he circle of competence for most of us, include myself. I gave up investing in Biotechs more than 14 years ago for that very reason.

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  • 1 month later...

How about the 100 Jan 18 LEAPS for 2$? They seem quite cheap in a stock that by 2018 will either sit tight and shrink to half its market cap or makes a big acquisition (preferably using its undervalued stock as consideration) to offset its HIV franchise, in which case it will probably trade at 110's+.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/health/immunotherapy-cancer-kite.html - this is impressive. Of course, the side effects are an issue, the cost is an issue, the "manual" per-patient production is an issue. But if these are somehow worked out, the production is industrialized/automated and made applicable to multiple diseases, this eventually could be huge.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a pharma/bio/chem expert. I don't imply GILD will/won't benefit on any future developments in this. I just find it interesting and fascinating. I have a small position in GILD.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/health/immunotherapy-cancer-kite.html - this is impressive. Of course, the side effects are an issue, the cost is an issue, the "manual" per-patient production is an issue. But if these are somehow worked out, the production is industrialized/automated and made applicable to multiple diseases, this eventually could be huge.

 

Disclaimer: I am not a pharma/bio/chem expert. I don't imply GILD will/won't benefit on any future developments in this. I just find it interesting and fascinating. I have a small position in GILD.

 

Yeah, this treatment method is a breakthrough. For Long time,  a lot of experts thought they immunotherapy  for cancer may not be feasible because cancer cells are just like other body cells, except they they duplicate out of control, so it is hard to discriminate any therapy to only attack cancer cell. but yet, here we are. I think the big challenge will be to “industrialize” the method and make it more accessible.

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  • 6 months later...

The continuing saga of GILD shows how incentives are screwed up in pharma business: you cure a disease, you lose your customers and business, your stock goes to shithouse. Even if you charge megabucks for cure. Lesson learned: don't cure diseases! ::)

 

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/curing-disease-not-a-sustainable-business-model-goldman-sachs-analysts-say/

 

ArsTechnica article is pretty neutral. You can imagine reaction from less neutral sources.  ::)

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that is just sad. we should look at the benefits it brought for patients and the money it saved for the healthcare system (as compare to not curing).

 

all the drug/healthcare companies should just cure one disease and make money and move on to next target. everybody happy.

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  • 1 year later...

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007016

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-10/two-thirds-of-severe-covid-19-improved-on-gilead-s-remdesivir

 

The report published in the New England Journal of Medicine tracked 53 people in the U.S., Europe and Canada who needed respiratory support, with about half receiving mechanical ventilation and four on a heart-lung by-pass machine. Eight additional patients were left out of the analysis: one due to a dosing error and seven because no information was available on how they fared.

 

All received remdesivir for up to 10 days on a compassionate use basis, a program that allows people to use unapproved medicines when no other treatment options are available. Over a period of 18 days, 68% of the patients improved, with 17 of the 30 patients on mechanical ventilation being able to get off the breathing support device. Almost half of the patients studied were ultimately discharged, while 13% died. Mortality was highest among those who were on a ventilator, with 18% of them dying.

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