Day Two at Rodman and Renshaw

Day two at the Rodman and Renshaw conference was interesting. The dining room couldn't handle anywhere near all the attendees at lunch -- they ran out of box lunches, snacks and coffee, and you could barely navigate from one session to another because of the crowd.

Why am I wastiong your time with this? Because this overattendance means there is tremendous interest in biotech and life sciences -- even the little outfits that dominate this conference -- which means more money flow and higher stock prices.

What was also interesting was the new interest, on the surface, in obesity drugs. I say surface because the formal presentations were standing room only, while the breakout sessions to ask management questions were empty. I think it's a great contrarian indicator that the interest in this class of drugs is growing, but it's early and investors can get in before the lemmings rush in.

Three companies with huge, pivotal trials drew a lot of interest -- Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc.(ARNA), Orexigen Therapeutics (OREX) and Vivus Inc. (VVUS). Stay tuned, more on obesity and the conference tomorrow.