Investopedia: XOMA Rearranges The Deck Chairs One More Time

XOMA (Nasdaq:XOMA) really is a remarkable story in many ways. Few companies have survived so long, and raised capital so many times, and done so little with it. While the company has actually approached $100 million in reported sales, and not many biotechs do even that much, the company has never had any real success in the clinic and has basically strung along successive generations of investors on hype and hope. Now that the company is changing up management yet again, investors should be asking themselves if there is really a good reason to stick by a company that has floundered around for more than 20 years to no real purpose.


A Change at the Top
XOMA announced Wednesday that it's CEO Steve Engle was bailing on the company. Engle said, "I am looking forward to applying my expertise building life science companies in the future."

Hmmm, expertise? Engle became XOMA's CEO in August of 2007. In the those four years, XOMA has gone from a market cap north of $350 million to a current market cap of just under $64 million, and the company really is not a great deal closer to having a winning product in its portfolio.


Read the complete article at the link below:
http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/XOMA-Rearranges-The-Deck-Chairs-One-More-Time-XOMA-REGN-PFE-ABT-ISIS-VICL-CELG0901.aspx

Good-ish Results From Lexicon

Lexicon Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: LXRX) *had* to have good results from its Phase 2 study of LX4211, or the stock was likely going to fall off the radar with a rather loud "thud". Luckily for investors (myself among them), the results were good enough to encourage investors at least for today.

The company actually said precious little about the results - mostly just that important markers like GLP-1 and PYY increased and that there was a "significant improvement" in post-prandial and fasting plasma glucose levels.I would like to see more specific data from this study before getting too excited, and maybe the company will oblige me when they present at the JPMorgan conference next week.Then again, the whole point of this study (as I understand it, at least) was to prove that the oral tablet version of LX4211 was basically just as good as the previously-tested liquid version.

On that score, it seems to be a success, particularly given some of the challenges that the company has had in the past with making more convenient forms of its potential therapies.

Also encouraging is the news that the company intends to start a Phase 2b study of the tablet formulation in Q2 of this year.

I've been pretty encouraged about this drug for some time, and I do believe it could be a big winner in the treatment of diabetes. Moreover, seeing the deal that Xoma (Nasdaq: XOMA) recently got for its phase 2 diabetes drug (a very different kind of drug, though), I have to feel a little better about LXRX's partnership possibilities.

BUY Lexicon Pharmaceuticals (only for highly risk-tolerant accounts!!!)

Disclosure: I own shares of Lexicon