Feuerstein's Biotech-Stock Mailbag

Welcome back to the Biotech Mailbag, the lazy Labor Day edition. I hope everyone had a great summer. This week, I'll tackle two companies: Isis Pharmaceuticals(ISIS Quote) and Nastech Pharmaceuticals(NSTK Quote).

Jeff G. writes: "What do you think about Isis Pharmaceuticals? It seems that they are in position to collect royalties on many RNAi drugs in development, as well as having several very promising drugs in their own pipeline. In addition, their Ibis division has a very promising biologics detector."

The skeptic in me says this is a company that's been trying to develop "antisense" drugs for years, with very little success. One drug made it to market, but it was a commercial flop. Everything else has failed, sometimes spectacularly.

The Isis track record isn't pretty, so why throw good money after bad?

But the optimist in me sees it a bit differently. Isis' long history of failure is just that -- in the past. The company has ditched antisense technology platform 1.0 in favor of version 2.0 -- which is delivering intriguing and potentially lucrative results.

Antisense might still be a relatively unproven -- and risky -- technology, but investors looking to make a small bet on its eventual success need to consider Isis for its deep pipeline of solo and partnered drugs.

You can't discuss Isis today without focusing on ISIS 301012, the company's cholesterol-lowering drug. The drug (let's call it '012 for short) is an injectable antisense drug that reduces the production of a protein, ApoB100, responsible for the transport of LDL, or bad cholesterol, through the bloodstream.