Regeneron News Must Be Put In Perspective

The Business Press Maven is always happy to call the business media some choice names when they don't fully explain expectations. Generally my ranting on this issue keys off earnings reports, but this also becomes a crying game for me when it comes to other business developments, like new products clearing hurdles.

For instance, suppose a cancer drug in development failed an important study. Well, was it expected to fail? Or what is thought of as a sure-fire hit? The expectations should be central to the story line of any article covering the issue, as they have endless implications for not only stock price, but also future business strategy.

Yet look at these three articles on Regeneron(REGN Quote), the biopharmaceutical company that has partnered up with Sanofi-Aventis(SNY Quote). One of the articles (the good one) makes expectations the gravitational center point of the article and leaves the reader informed. The second (the bad one) makes little, if any, mention of expectations, and thus leaves the reader uninformed. The third (the medium one) mentions past expectations, informing the reader, but makes a weird, sloppy stab at future expectations, confusing the reader.

The good one was written by Elizabeth Trotta of TheStreet.com. I try to stay away from praising TheStreet.com work too often for fear of charges of favoritism, but I have to submit this one for your approval. Start with the headline, which says it all: "Low Expectations Don't Cushion Regeneron."

They Just Don't Get Inflation!

The story here is that Regeneron was aiming to compete with Genentech(DNA Quote) on an ovarian cancer drug, but interim data presented last year at the American Society of Clinical Oncology did not look promising and now this: a 215 patient phase II study, which ran along the same unpromising lines. The headline thus gets at the crux of the matter: If expectations were already low, why did the stock get creamed by nearly 15%.