aegirion. now, aegirion has had a strong clinical trial result with its clinical trial, and, in fact, it causes a greater reduction, so why am i recommending isis going into this pair of fda meetings? it's all about risk. ultimately i think both company's drugs will end up getting approved despite safety concerns surrounding each of them. however, if things go the wrong way, the down side risk is much greater for aegirion. here's a tiny $400 million company with a tiny pipeline. isis has $306 million on its balance sheet. if the fda asks for more safety data and isis is going to hold up a heck of a lot better. the other thing is that isis's ldl drug also produces other types of fat in the blood, and if they can eight approval to expand the market beyond this one condition into other types of patients with high ldl levels, now we're talking about a billion dollar market opportunity. plus, it's not just about this one drug. they have this whole drug discovery platform i mentioned. for the last ce

if things go the wrong way, downside is much greater for aegirion. and puny pipeline for aegirion. isis has $360 million in cash on the balance sheet. if the fda asks for more safety data or puts up roadblocks, isis will hold up better. isis' drug also reduces other types of fat in the blood and if they can get approval into other types of patients with high ldl cholesterol, we're talking about a billion dollar market opportunity. plus isis isn't just about one drug. they have a whole drug discovery platform that i mentioned. last century, every pharmaceutical company has designed drugs by binding to individual proteins within the body. isis has a different method they developed drugs that work by binding to rna. rna takes the blueprint from the dna and turns it into various proteins that are the various building blocks of life. if you can change what the rna is doing, you can treat a whole host of diseases by changing what the body is doing at a much more fundamental level than what we see from traditional drugs and that's why isis has a done of partnerships with pharmaceuticals.