Cramer's Biotech Zombie Looking Up

On Friday’s MAD MONEY on CNBC, Jim Cramer discussed Nastech Pharma (NSTK).  This is one of the biotech zombies that has fallen from grace, but Cramer thinks they have some winning compounds worth a dabble in the company.  NSTK loses money and it lost Merck on the obesity study and for a while it only issued press releases.  The stock is thought of as a joke, but now you must own it if you are a biotech speculator according to Cramer.  He reviewed the company for 5 days last week before reviewing it.  It has $90M cash and has compounds for RNA Interference tests, obesity, osteoporosis, and others.  None of the products are commercial yet but it has plenty of cash to stay ahead of its burn rate.  When it got crushed last year they left the street with no reason to own the stock.  At the end of the year it stopped issuing press releases and now the main seller has finally cleaned out of the stock.  Cramer thinks the compounds may actually work and Wall Street doesn’t know it. Cramer said they have also hired a great industry insider to help it work on compounds. 

Investors may also want to know that the company is making an investor presentation at the Invest Northwest Investor and CEO Forum on Tuesday, March 20, 2007 at 4:35 p.m. Pacific Time at the Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle. 

It is too early to see the prints at 6:30 AM this morning but shares traded up 6% on more than 100,000 to $11.31 Friday night.  NSTK did trade up late Friday after announcing its investor presentation.  The 52-week range is $9.50 to $19.98 and its market cap as of the $10.66 close was $271.5 million.  Pre-market indications have the offer as high as $11.60, but that may be much different as we get closer to the open.

Jon C. Ogg
March 19, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.