Feuerstein's Biotech-Stock Mailbag

Let's get right to it. This week's first email comes from Frank Z., who writes:

"What about SuperGen (SUPG)? The pipeline looks promising, stock perking up, positive outcome with their [Dacogen] EORTC study and [Tuesday's] analyst day sounded promising. You wrote about the stock a year ago how about a little Adam F. biotech rundown?"

The overhang on SuperGen today is the pending results from a European study of its drug Dacogen designed to assess survival in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a cancer-like disease of the bone marrow.

Both Dacogen and Celgene's (CELG) competing drug, Vidaza, are already approved in the U.S. as a treatment for MDS patients. Vidaza, however, has a study included in its Food and Drug Administration label showing it can significantly boost survival; Dacogen does not.

That's why this European survival study on Dacogen (the EORTC study, as Frank states) is important for SuperGen. We should get results this quarter or around midyear.

Japanese drugmaker Eisai, which actually sells Dacogen in the U.S. and pays royalties to SuperGen, has been expressing public confidence of late that the EORTC study will come back with a survival benefit favoring Dacogen.

That makes sense, since Dacogen and Vidaza are similar drugs; and previous studies have shown that when enough cycles of Dacogen are administered to an MDS patient (ideally around four cycles), patient survival is improved.

What I find interesting about SuperGen is that the stock, sitting there under $3, seems to already price in low expectations for this Dacogen trial. In many ways, the Dacogen-Vidaza marketing battle is like the one between Coke and Pepsi, each has its proponents and skeptics that are resistant to change, so market share gains are measured in small increments.