A New Day at FDA Leads The Way For Sarepta Therapeutics

Shareholders of Sarepta Therapeutics (Nsadaq: SRPT) could be excused for scratching their heads yesterday after the close when the common stock of the company traded down around 10% after what seemed to be positive news emanating from the FDA. In a highly anticipated press release, Sarepta announced the results of the company’s meeting with the FDA regarding the pathway to eventual approval for eteplirsen, a novel exon-skipping drug that shows tremendous promise in treating boys suffering from Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy (“DMD”).

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Why the Bookies Are Wrong on Sarepta Therapeutics

The options market proves the old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Investors who dabble in special situations expect that the marketplace knows the basic outlines of your thesis, and prices risk accordingly. That’s not to say you can’t make money betting on outcomes, just that the firms on the other side taking your wager always make sure that the table pays odds commiserate with the gamble.

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Will Windows Phone Upend Conventional Wisdom?

(November 23, 2012) Last night’s Patriot rout of the sad-sack New York Jets had all the hallmarks of a turkey. As someone who shelled out green to see some green action I had seen enough red on the field for one night so I strolled on over to the Verizon Studio to check out the latest handsets on display. As expected, people were milling about playing with the dozens of new phones and tables on display, preferring the indoor digital toys to the schoolyard romp taking place outside.

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Zachary Prensky started his career in the early-90s by founding a software company originally run out of his NYC-college dorm room. After a short detour as a controller of a mid-size NYC-based catering firm, in 1997 Zachary returned to his roots by working with, and raising funds for, local technology startups. Over the next 3 years he  was integral in accerating the growth of a number of 1990s success stories, notably AB Watley (an online brokerage firm), Register.com (domain name registrar) and GoAmerica Communications (the first local firm to offer RIMM Blackberry service).

 

After observing the dot-com bust in the early 2000s Zachary set his sites on picking through the rubble and acquiring stakes in a number of down, but not necessarily out, technology investments. He renamed his firm Little Bear Investments and led a successful syndicate of investors who purchased the largest (at the time) VC-backed bankruptcy sale of of minority internet investments (Divine Interventures, in mid-2003). Scooping up stakes of future success stories such as PeopleSupport & ComScore, Zachary and his partners spent much of the decade working with his portfolio companies to ultimately realize their value in the piblic markets.

 

Today Little Bear focuses most of its’ attention on a portfolio of special situations. Lately, the firm’s focus has been on a number of distressed situations, both public and private, as well as working with fellow researchers in uncovering fraudulent activity amoungst Nasdaq- and NYSE- listed highflyers.

 

Zachary lives with his two boys on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and is involved in a number of non-profit organizations, both locally and abroad. His boys are big NY Rangers fans, and you can often find the three of them on winter weekday nights cheering on their favorite Broadway Blueshirts.

 

” Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration. ” Andrew Carnegie