Feuerstein's Biotech-Stock Mailbag

As for Nastech's intranasal obesity drug, let's not forget that this was a program partnered with Merck(MRK) until the drug giant gave up on it in March 2006. Nastech decided to soldier on solo, but Merck's decision to drop an obesity drug (a potential blockbuster) should be a big concern to any investor.

Nastech does have a more advanced drug candidate -- an intranasal formulation of parathyroid hormone (PTH) to treat osteoporosis. This drug is essentially an intranasal version of Eli Lilly's(LLY) injectable PTH drug, Forteo.

Nastech partnered with Procter & Gamble(PG) to develop intranasal PTH, but the program has been somewhat slow moving as P&G chose to conduct more phase II studies before moving ahead with a phase III trial.

I'd also note that the osteoporosis drug market is crowded and getting more so, and includes competitors developing other nasal or inhaled PTH. How this affects the efforts by Nastech and P&G remain to be seen.

To its credit, I don't see Nastech standing out there trying to hype its pipeline, so I don't agree with Jimmy's accusation. Yes, the company recently held a "Webinar" to detail its very early (preclinical) research efforts into RNAi, but I'll let that slide, given all the recent excitement in the area.

My fundamental problem with Nastech -- and the reason I'm not in total agreement with Jim Cramer here -- is simply that I'd like to see more clinical data and more progress on the company's ambitious (and potentially lucrative) projects before I'd consider myself a believer.

I'm not there yet, but that doesn't mean I won't be in the future.

Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider Nastech Pharmaceuticals to be a small-cap stock. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints