Myogen's Myopic Fans

Stubborn Bulls

Of course, Fein's bullish call hardly stands out.

Just take a look at the reports penned by Geoffrey Meacham at JPMorgan. Last week, Meacham reiterated his overweight rating on Myogen because of an "incremental positive" development involving a drug that's just now being tested in Phase III trials and -- if approved -- may not hit the market for years. Meanwhile, the company will likely follow Encysive onto the market with its other drug.

But Meacham likes the stock regardless.

"We believe MYOG shares do not fully reflect the significant market opportunities associated with the company's two potentially best-in-class agents," Meacham explains. Thus, "we continue to view Myogen as one of our favorite names in the mid-cap space."

The stock was sitting at $29.29 a share when Meacham published his report. It went on to fall through a key support level around $28.70 and has struggled to claw its way back, rising to $27.17 on Thursday, since that time.

Meanwhile, Meacham has expressed far more caution about Encysive, despite upgrades from his competitors. Encysive recently rocketed on news that its treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension, or PAH, could be approved as early as July and handily beat Myogen's competing PAH drug to the market. Meacham reacted by saying that Encysive could still fail to get the drug approved -- while admitting the opposite usually happens -- and claiming that the company will not benefit from its headstart against Myogen even if regulators bless its drug next month.

"The competitive profile of (Encysive's) Thelin is no different than previously thought," Meacham writes, "where a launch ahead of Myogen's ambrisentan will ultimately not matter given the best-in-class profile of ambrisentan."

JPMorgan counts both Myogen and Encysive as its clients and owns stock in both of the companies. However, JPMorgan lists itself as a "major shareholder" of Myogen alone.