Why I should invest in Genzyme

For yesterday's class on Novazyme, a guest speaker from Genzyme came to speak about what happened after they acquired Novazyme. Basically, this start-up was focused on developing a promising therapy to cure Pompe disease, or "Floppy Baby" syndrome. It's so rare that only ~100 babies/year in the US are expected to develop Pompe's. It's so rare that running clinical trials to prove that it is both safe and effective is problematic. After all, how do even find those 100 babies?

Long story short, Novazyme is bought by Genzyme, who has had a lot of experience in developing drugs to treat Lysosomal Storage Diseases (which is what Pompe is). That's not the cool part. The extremely cool part is that Crowley, the co-founder of Novazyme, is brought into Genzyme to look at all the current Pompe programs that are in competition, and to pick the best one. The reason why this makes sense is that Crowley's 2 children have Pompe's disease. Therefore, as a father, Crowley doesn't care where the damn drug comes from. He's not burdened by politics or loyalty to Novazyme. He picks the one that has the best shot at curing his kids.

Now, Genzyme's fourth quarter financial results are up 10%, mostly because Myozyme, the FDA-approved Pompe treatment, is doing so well. Now that's the kind of company where I'd like to have my skin in the game.