Cougar Biotechnology shares get a fast start in trading: stock booms on prospects for prostate cancer drug.

IT'S, been a lively month so far in Los Angeles small-cap life sciences sector. Among the more notable events: Cougar Biotechnology, which merged with a public but non-trading shell company last April, finally obtained its registration papers from the Securities and Exchange Commission and began trading Feb. 8 on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board.

Cougar shares doubled in price to close at $19.65 on the first day, later leveling off to around $15.80 as of Feb. 14.

That's heady interest in a bulletin board stock that's riding on a prostate cancer drug that likely won't hit the market before 2010 if approved. But a respected boutique brokerage initiated coverage on opening day with an "outperform" rating.

Cougar Chief Executive Alan Auerbach, himself a former equities analyst, said his board decided it was in the four-year-old company's best interests to spend its cash on clinical trials, not the expense of an initial public offering and regulatory costs of maintaining a listing on a major exchange.

"Our board very wisely decided this was the best way to become public very early in the development cycle (of the company), so with our future success we could be rewarded along the way with a valuation that was more in line with the biotech group," he said.

Leerink Swann& Company analyst Howard Liang sees a possible boost for investors this week if the company presents early Phase 2 trial data on the prostate drug, abiraterone, at a major cancer symposium. Cougar has two other cancer drugs in its pipeline.