Institutional Pharmacy Provides Value Investors With Opportunity
2009-11-19 15:47:40
Carl Gardiner has been a financial analyst for over 18 years, including eight years in investment analysis and management. Prior to joining Schafer Cullen Capital Management, he was an investment analyst and portfolio manager at two research-driven, value-oriented investment funds, Copper Arch Capital and North Sound Capital. From 1992 to 2000, he was a Director at Merrill Lynch, as an investment banker in New York and London. Mr. Gardiner began his career at Fox Asset Management, a value-oriented money management firm. He received a MA degree in International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1992 and a BA degree with High Honors from the University of Virginia in 1989.TWST: Would you be able to give us any examples of the type of companies that are like core holdings or new acquisitions?
There are far fewer of those just lopsided, obviously mispriced opportunities, so we are now back more into our normal mode of finding situations that are overlooked. In this vein, the last stock I'd mention is our most recent purchase, Omnicare (OCR). Omnicare trades at a little over 9 times 2009 earnings, with a $2.8 billion market value. Omnicare is the largest institutional pharmacy in the US, serving skilled nursing facilities and assisted living facilities, with a 50% share of this market. There are some interesting things going on at Omnicare that have great potential to boost returns over the next two to three years. Most importantly, having consolidated the industry, the company is finally taking advantage of its scale. Omnicare is nearly through an initiative to automate and centralize certain repetitive functions, so that it can downsize its over 200 regional pharmacies saving over $100mm a year in costs and freeing resource for customer retention activity. Omnicare has a number of other cost-saving initiatives underway as well. Finally, the wave of branded drugs going generic gives Omnicare a gross profit lift, and while this has been underway for the past few years, there is still some runway here.
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories (RDY): Best Pharma Stock In India
2009-11-08 09:17:58
Prashant Nair is a Mumbai-based Director and Analyst who covers the Indian pharmaceutical, health care and agrochemical sectors for Citi Investment Research.TWST: Tell me about Dr.Reddy's (RDY). What is it that you like about them?
Mr. Nair: Dr.Reddy's is probably one of the best players in the global generics industry in our view, definitely one of the best players among the Indian generic companies. They have a very strong presence in the U.S. and in the Russia-CIS markets. They have a portfolio of products pending approval - not only plain vanilla generic filings, but also a whole lot of patent challenges and limited competition opportunities. So they have products that can help them gain more traction with the trade going forward. It's a company that is fully integrated in terms of manufacturing, and therefore enjoys the cost advantage that Indian companies have been known for. But at the same time, they have now come to a stage where they have built a certain amount of leverage on the front end in some of the important markets. We think that going forward, this company will potentially grow much faster than most of its competitors in India.
Read more about Prashant Nair's India Stock Picks in the current Pharmaceuticals Report.
Nutra Pharma featured company in Wall Street Transcript
2009-11-02 14:30:33
Rik Deitsch, President, CEO and Director of Nutra Pharma (NPHC) talked to The Wall Street Transcript about his company Nutra Pharma. Click here to read the complete interview.TWST: Would you please tell us about Nutra Pharma? Mr. Deitsch: Nutra Pharma (NPHC.OB), for want of a better term, is a biotechnology holding company. We seek out interesting concepts, drugs and devices in the biotechnology field, and we bring it into the Nutra Pharma family. We are especially good at finding diamonds in the rough - companies that are poorly managed and/or undercapitalized, and bring them competent management, qualified business plans and then necessary funding. Utilizing this strategy, we now have two divisions: ReceptoPharm is our drug discovery division and Designer Diagnostics is our medical device division. In ReceptoPharm we have drugs for the treatment of HIV, multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis, adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN) and pain. In Designer Diagnostics we have medical devices for the rapid isolation and detection of mycobacteria, which are bacteria that are very hard to culture and grow.
UBS Equity Analyst States That Sale Of Biogen Idec (BIIB) Is "Foregone Conclusion": To Whom And At What Price The Question
2009-10-24 12:28:03
In the October 19 Biotechnology Report, Biotech industry expert Maged Shenouda discusses the outlook for the sector and for investors. Mr. Shenouda is an Executive Director in the health care group of UBS Investment Research, specializing in coverage of large-cap biotechnology companies. An Analyst since 1999, he joined UBS in 2004 from J.P. Morgan, where he had served as a Biotechnology Analyst since 2000. Mr. Shenouda earlier worked as biotech and European Pharmaceuticals Analyst at Bear, Stearns & Co., and as an Associate Pharmaceuticals Analyst at Solomon Smith Barney. Prior to that, he was a Management Consultant with Price Waterhouse, focusing on the pharmaceutical industry, and he served as a Pharmaceutical Sales Representative for Abbott Laboratories. Mr. Shenouda holds an MBA in marketing from Rutgers University and a B.S. in pharmacy from St. John's University's College of Pharmacy. He is a registered pharmacist in New Jersey and California.TWST: What do you expect the sector to look like in five years?
Mr. Shenouda: We probably will have fewer large-cap names. I think we'll probably see some acquisitions - I think Biogen Idec (BIIB) is on its way to being acquired at some point, with Carl Icahn involved in the name as well and having put themselves on the block about a year ago. That seems to be a foregone conclusion now. But the big question is at what price will it be acquired? Then we could see maybe one other name going. With one or two names going away, the sector becomes a few large caps with most companies in the mid- and small-cap categories. We're also going to see more and more collaborations between biotech and pharma and/or large-cap biotech.
Biotech Mergers and Acquisitions Wave Coming Soon According To Canadian Investment Fund
2009-10-23 12:59:11
Abbott Labs (ABT) recent acquisition of Solvay is a lead indicator for a new wave of acquisitions of Biotech companies by Large Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer (PFE), Bristol Myers (BMY) and Novartis (NVS) according to Serge Depatie, portfolio manager for NatCan Investments. One target that Mr. Depatie thinks will make a good acquisition is Orexigen (OREX) which is focused on obesity treatments.