Wall Street fecha semana em alta. S&P 500 e Nasdaq atingem recorde

[JCS]

"Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong has been called ruthless and a headline-grabber. As a scientist he has been criticized for hyping his research results; as a drugmaker he has been accused of ripping off investors. Short-sellers have boldly bet against him, risking huge losses. Even his own brother, an early backer, sued him for fraud and fired him--twice--from the company they started. Their skirmishing lasted two years and destroyed their relationship.

Yet Soon-Shiong, chairman and controlling shareholder of publicly held American Pharmaceutical Partners, endured the blows and has been largely exonerated--in the meantime, rising to billionaire status. Credit his immovable faith in the promise of an experimental cancer treatment dubbed Abraxane.

Ten years in the making, Abraxane aims at making Taxol, the world's bestselling chemotherapy drug for cancer, far more potent with far less severe side effects.Each dose contains millions of molecules of paclitaxel (generic Taxol) embedded in submicroscopic balls of human protein that are only a hundredth the size of a red blood cell. The protein in these nanoparticles, albumin, carries the drug safely through the bloodstream so it can slip through the leaky vessels inside tumors and kill cancerous cells in a concentrated rush. And because it has stripped out one of chemo's most toxic components, it can be given in higher doses--yet be administered in only one-sixth the time, with fewer side effects.

The Food & Drug Administration has granted fast-track status to Abraxane and could approve it by early 2004. Results of late-stage clinical trials could be unveiled within months. "This is the culmination of my career's obsession," Soon-Shiong says. "This will, for the first time, unlock the full potential of that compound."

Moreover, if Soon-Shiong's concept of "hiding" Taxol inside teensy spheres of protein wins clearance, he hopes to use it similarly for other drugs that treat cancer and other diseases. If Abraxane gets approved, APPwill immediately begin producing the chemo and, Soon-Shiong hopes, his legions of skeptics will finally just go away.

Paclitaxel, sold for years as Taxol by Bristol-Myers Squibb and now by generic firms as well, generates $2.1 billion a year. Analysts say that Abraxane could gross $25million to $40 million in its first year alone. A consultant hired by American Pharmaceutical Partners has given Abraxane an 80% chance of success and pegged the value of APP's license to make and sell the drug at $1 billion. Frenzied investors have bid APP's market value up 250% in the past year, to $2.4 billion or ten times the revenue it generates from its main business of selling generic injectable drugs. Soon-Shiong, who owns 52%of APP through his 80% stake in its privately held parent, American Bioscience, has seen his worth jump to $1.1 billion, up from $390 million since December 2001's IPO.

Of course, the delivery system could flop or suffer long delays. Drug hunters have been trying for years to create similar protein-encased "packages" for delivering potent drugs, mostly unsuccessfully. The FDA has agreed to look at Abraxane as a chemical equivalent to Taxol but, depending on the trial results, could order Soon-Shiong to conduct massive new trials. But the bar is low:The drug need only be slightly more effective than Taxol or a bit less harmful. And early results are upbeat:In an ongoing midstage trial of 100 breast cancer patients who failed to respond to traditional Taxol therapy, 6 of the first 28 patients reporting have seen their tumors shrink by half. One woman's tumor disappeared completely.

But Soon-Shiong's results to date have done little to quiet those who, he claims, have been trying to bring him down for years. Questions about the drug's clinical trials and allegations of supposed self-dealing between Soon-Shiong's two companies, American Bioscience (which owns Abraxane) and American Pharmaceutical Partners (which will make and sell it), have attracted short-sellers by the boatload. In April, with APP stock trading in the $12 range, every single freely tradable share of APPhad been sold short by speculators betting the price would fall. Now APP trades at $37, and short interest is down to 58% of shares outstanding.

"I'm confident the science is sound," says Soon-Shiong.

He has spent much of his life dealing with doubters. Soon-Shiong was born in South Africa in 1952 to parents who had fledChina during World War II. Soon-Shiong attended the University of Witwatersrand's medical school on a scholarship, graduating fourth out of 189. As one of the first nonwhite surgical residents at Johannesburg's General Hospital on staff, he earned $1,000 a month, half the rate of his white peers. His first patient, a white Afrikaner, initially refused to let Soon-Shiong treat him."


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