Feuerstein's Biotech Mailbag

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After publishing my Vertex Pharmaceuticals(VRTX Quote) column Wednesday about investors' anxiousness for hepatitis C drug trial data, I received an email from reader Jackie, a hepatitis C patient who is very knowledgeable about the disease and Vertex's drug telaprevir (although she is not enrolled in the telaprevir clinical trials).

Jackie posts regularly to a hepatitis C message board and reads a lot of what's written in the financial press about Vertex, including columns by yours truly. She wrote me to ask why Wall Street types (myself included) don't understand how important telaprevir is already to the hepatitis C patient community: "Why is there such a disconnect in the information you put out there for investors?"

I wasn't sure what she meant. To be honest, I was a bit defensive about her email because I didn't see any disconnect. After all, I think I'm as up to speed as anyone on the latest in hepatitis C. But then we corresponded a bit more and I realized that maybe I don't know as much as I thought.

Speaking for myself, I don't spend much time thinking about the individual patients whose lives are very much affected by the drugs I write about. And I'd venture a guess that I'm not alone in that view. I'm not entirely apologetic about that fact, because evaluating biotech stocks requires looking at the big picture. But at the same time, it would help me to think more about folks like Jackie.