Barbara Walters Special - Ground Zero for Onset of Irrational Exuberance?

Long time readers of this blog are well aware of my belief that Sirtris Pharmacueticals has the potential to be the story stock of ALL story stocks. The main ingredients are there for the onset of irrational exuberance and here is my attempt to list them in order of importance:

• The fountain of youth angle - live long and stay vigorous.
• The potential (dream?) to cure many diseases of the aging with a single pill.
• The Harvard Medical School connection combined with the incredible team of brain power put together by Sirtris.
• The idea that the body's own defense mechanism is being activated, a seemingly natural process.
• The evidence that sirtuin activation results in improved athletic performance without the nasty side effects of HGH and anabolic steroids.

It is the investor's dream to own a company BEFORE irrational exuberance manifests itself in a stock's share price with the hope that the investor can either:

1. Recognize when investor psychology has turned negative and recognize some very healthy gains OR
2. Continue to own shares and reap the ultimate of financial rewards when suspected "irrational" exuberance proves to be "rational" after all.

We've seen many examples in history of number 1 - great story stocks that never lived up to expectations. I illustrated a couple of examples in my December 17, 2007 blog entry. Smart investors capitalized and made huge sums of money on the way up...others fell victim to the hype and got burned as the story turned out to be a fantasy.

Tuesday night at 10:00 PM could mark Sirtris Pharmacueticals move into America's conscience and into Wall Street's spotlight as Barbara Walters highlights the amazing body of work at Sirtris Pharmacueticals on a special program called Live to 150...Can You Do It?. Its likely to be very compelling television and those who have been following the area of sirtuins KNOW that the actual evidence is equally compelling.

IMHO, the main hurdle to irrational exuberance in any stock at this time may be overall market pessimism. However, if there is a story that can swim up tide, IMO, we may be looking at it right here and right now.

Do your own due diligence (and remember to visit resveratrol sponsors on this page).

Multiple Potentials of the Sirtuin Platform

With each passing month, Sirtris Pharmacueticals, the leading biotechnology company in sirtuin based drug research, presents new data showing that the approach of targeting sirtuins shows promise in multiple diseases. Although we are still in the early innings of the game, the potential value being created at Sirtris is tremendous. A partial listing linked to the associated press releases that discuss progress treating various diseases is shown here:

• Optic Neuritis in a Preclinical Model of Multiple Sclerosis
• Cancer
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Alzheimer's Disease
• Huntington Disease
• Stess reistance in plants

The potential of this sirtuin platform to create a very valuable company is promising as there are multiple roads to success. Most importantly, the process of activating a natural defense process within the body seems to make the likelihood of safety high. While it is still early, so far no side serious effects have been reported in any clinical data.

Its still a long road to commercial success. However, increased valuation is usually reflected in the stock price of of a biotechnology company well in advance of the crowning event of a drug achieving FDA approval. More importantly, from an shareholder's perspective, irrational exuberance can take hold quickly once a certain level of confidence is achieved in a company's prospects. Add in some excitement in the press and some Wall Street analysts that pound the table and you've got yourself a story stock

Do your own due dilligence.

Biotech CEO Joins Sirtris Board

Sirtris Pharmacuticals announced today that Paul Friedman, president and CEO of biotech concern, Incyte Coproration, was joined its board of directors. This addition complements other industry leaders on the board including Jeffrey Capello, SVP and CFO, PerkinElmer, Inc.,
Stephen Hoffman, Ph.D., M.D., Chairman (and former CEO) of Allos Therapeutics, Inc., Richard Pops, Chairman (and former CEO) of Alkermes, Inc. Incyte Corporation is a drug discovery and development company, which focuses on developing proprietary small molecule drugs to treat human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), diabetes, oncology, and inflammation diseases. Incyte has a market capitalization of $863 million and a enterprise value close to $1 Billion.

It is interesting to observe the stream of executives from competitors and potential partners populating the Sirtris board. The industry contacts available to this board are certainly widespread. It wouldn't be a surprise if a joint venture with a major player happens sooner than the timeframe that Sirtris management has been guiding to. The recently approved patent approval granted to the company on resveratrol like NCE compounds, certainly puts Sirtris in a stronger negotiating position for a deal to happen.

Sirtris Issued Important Patent on SIRT1 Activators

Sirtris Pharmacueticals reported today a significant milestone in its strategy to become the gatekeeper to the technology involved in the activation of the SRT1 enzyme in stating that "the United States Patent Office issued to Sirtris the first patent covering a broad class of compounds that activate the enzyme SIRT1." The significance of this patent, in my opinion, is related to the phrase "broad class". It has been a goal of Sirtris to effectively control the platform of compounds that activate sirtuins. This achievement can be viewed a significant step in that goal.

If the Sirtuin platform proves to be as promising for drug development in diseases of the aging as early indications seem to indicate, this patent could be remembered as the inflection pointed that started it all for Sirtris. The obvious upside of the patent is that big pharma is much more likely to partner with Sirtris than to pursue sirtuin research on its own and risk patent infringement issues.

For those interesting in learning more about sirtuins and their promise, read through the earlier blogs on this post.

Sirtris Expands Revenue Potential into Agriculture

Capitalizing on its vast platform of life extending technologies, Sirtris announced today that it has expanded its scope into the agriculture industry by granting an exclusive license agreement to the crop science subsidiary of multi-national German conglomerate, Bayer AG. The agreement covers "worldwide rights in the field of plants to a certain Sirtris technology that contributes to cellular life span extension and stress resistance." Sirtris will receive an initial up-front payment and potential future success bound milestone payments. However, specific payment terms were not disclosed.

Without knowing the specific details of the agreement it is difficult to assess the revenue potential of this agreement. However, the agriculture industry is a huge global business and any technology that can economically and safely improve yields should prove to be lucrative.

SRT501 Shows Oral Effectiveness in Mice for MS Eye Disease

In a new study on mice, Sirtris Pharmacueticals will present today that its SRT501 drug candidate is equally effective when administered orally versus previous studies by injection in the treatment of an eye disease common in patients with multiple sclerosis (the report of the study was originally released on March 4th, 2008). The company continues to accumulate data with the goal of validating the belief that the targeting of the sirtuin genes has the potential to become a platform for drug development in the treatment of multiple diseases of the aging.