Best Stocks for 2008: Partnerships and takeover appeal at Isis (ISIS)

Posted Dec 31st 2007 11:45AM by Steven Halpern
Filed under: Newsletters, Stocks to Buy, Best Stocks for 2008

For 25 years, Steven Halpern, editor of TheStockAdvisors.com, has surveyed the leading financial newsletter advisors asking for their favorite stocks for the coming year. This article is one of 100+ ideas in the Best Stocks for 2008 report.

"Our favorite speculative play for 2008 is Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ISIS)," says biotech expert John McCamant, editor of The Medical Technology Stock Letter.

"The main reason to own ISIS is the strong potential for an extremely attractive partnership for their exciting anti-cholesterol drug candidate, mipomersen, or an outright acquisition of the company itself at a substantial premium.

"We have seen recent evidence of acceleration in deal activity as the Sanofi-Aventis/Regeneron deal was the richest we have ever seen for drug candidates only in Phase 1 testing. In turn, this has most likely upped the ante for doing a deal with ISIS for mipomersen, which is now in Phase 3.

"We believe that ISIS has the most attractive late-stage anti-cholesterol drug candidate in development and expect the stock to be much higher on a partnership or an acquisition.

"The strong data for mipomersen that was presented at the recent American Heart Association meeting -- which showed it had the stunning ability to reduce LDL (bad cholesterol) levels an additional 48% on top of statin therapy -- has cemented mipomersen as the one of the most valuable drug candidates in development.

"Mipomersen's unique effectiveness comes from its ability to specifically target apoB, a key cholesterol drug target that has previously been un-druggable using traditional small molecule chemistry. Two factors may trigger an acquisition as opposed to a deal.

"The first is: as the deal price goes up, the potential partner will crunch the numbers to see how much they might have to pay to get the whole ball of wax.

"The second factor that might tip towards an outright acquisition is the extremely strong intellectual property position ISIS has built in both antisense and mRNAI. Regardless of which of the two scenarios ends up unfolding, shareholders will be richly rewarded. ISIS is a buy under $18 with a target of $30."

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