WHEN nine out of 10 dentists recommend Colgate, why does the...

WHEN nine out of 10 dentists recommend Colgate, why does the renegade mouth manipulator take the contrary view?

This week, the stem-cell play's phase-two trial results on its heart disease product Revascor were welcomed by "nine out of 10" biotech analysts. But lone sceptic Macquarie Equities stood out.

On the majority side, Bell Potter's Stuart Roberts says the data "suggests a powerful heart treatment, putting Mesoblast on track for a phase-three (trial) next year".

"Revascor nails it," adds Lodge Partners analyst Marc Sinatra. But Macquarie's Craig Collie believes Mesoblast's trials missed a key endpoint in left ventricle ejection function -- the rate of blood spurting from the heart's main chamber.

"Disappointingly, the benefit seen for LVEF (the most commonly used metric for heart function) at three months was not repeated at 12 months."

In a nutshell -- a handy device for deciphering trial results -- one of 45 patients died from cardiac-related causes after a 22-month period, compared with three in a 15-member control group.

Revascor also delayed the first "major cardiac event", thus keeping patients out of hospital.

With partner Teva, Mesoblast plans a phase-three trial involving up to 1000 patients. After that, it's time to face the US Food and Drug Administration.

Despite the 90 per cent approval rating, the stock was smashed by 5 per cent after Tuesday's announcement and was no healthier yesterday. The stock also had a poor October, with the finger pointed at short sellers. If successful -- and the heart stuff is only one application for its stem-cell platform -- Mesoblast will be worth many times more than its $2.2 billion market cap.

But this valuation is a lot more than that of any other pre-approval drug play, so there's enormous downside if the unpredictable FDA is unimpressed.

We'll heed the majority experts' ring of confidence and go with a speculative buy