re "does Isis seem to be as close to a risk-free investment at today’s price, with a projected 100% holding period return, for those who have a 12-18 month time horizon?"

Well, of course many people on this board alone have said a takeover won't happen. I certainly can't call ISIS risk-free. We don't know for sure mipo will be approved and we don't know when it is if there might conditions placed on it that would cause the stock to sell off.

Then since we're being valued as a one drug biotech one unexpected piece of bad mipo news like a patient blowing out their liver or having a Hy's law or two could send this stock below $6 easily at least for a while.

I always thought in the past the best time to buy ISIS would be if mipo failed for some mipo-related reason and you could pick up the rest of the company in the $4's or $5's. I never imagined we'd go through all these years, mipo would be filed in the US and Europe, we'd have a stable of early stage potential blockbusters many of which could make many multiples of mipo, something that is really more of a recent thing, and we'd be sitting here with the stock price down in the $7's in a strong broad stock and biotech market. As to the Factor XI drug yes, it could be huge but as far as I know it hasn't been in a patient with a DVT yet so it's premature until we have that solid proof of concept trial completed.

In terms of holding a large position in the stock because of a possible takeover I don't see it as optimal anymore. It's a very binary event, either it happens or it doesn't and then there's the timing. I do believe these new cholesterol drugs cut into the long term prospects for mipo. I'm also waiting to hear if we'll get priority review or not and frankly given the sometimes lack of transparency I don't know if we'll get a specific PR if we don't.

I won't mind if the stock stays depressed a little while longer until the Jan calls come out. Then I could benefit from any takeover in the next 7 months without holding a ton of stock anymore.