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Just want to say THANKS for your clear head and analytical analysis, hemo!
Lots of emotion splattering the ihub and yahoo boards recently, and I appreciate a cool head who speaks with knowledge and experience.
Bottom line, nothing has changed, no bad news and the filter keeps working, we still have the best single bullet against sepsis in the world. And more applications to come, hang on for the ride.
Happy Independence Day!
May God help CTSO to save lives, and may God continue to bless America!
Question, Bertha: So from the Baxter announcement (thanks, btw), it looks like Oxiris is being used to treat sepsis, but they are running clinical studies in Italy. So can we therefore assume that Oxiris has not been FDA approved for sepsis yet?
And assuming that their trials go well, would a company like Baxter be able to immediately fund a big multi-million dollar US trial to get FDA approval, something that could beat CTSO to the FDA finish line?
Just wondering. Because if the basic technology of these kinds of filters works, I can see a whole lot of other Baxter-like companies jumping in...so I hope our patents will give us sufficent protection and longevity.
Thoughts?
Great stuff, fantom, thanks! Every bit of intel helps us shape our opinions and expectations. And again, except for the SP - I know, it's the reason we're all here - everything else seems positive.
Hello, fantomphan, question: Sorry if I missed it, but could please elaborate on the "them" you met with in early winter? Can you reveal who you spoke with, and can you paraphrase anything that was said re: creating the situation whereby several companies might try and outbid each other to "take us out" (I assume you mean "buy us out")?
You sound like someone plugged into the CTSO-net, so just like caesare, any intelligence you could provide would be most appreciated!
I hear you, sting. Man, do I hear you. I think lots of people hear you, including the CEO. In fact, when I met him several years ago, it was a few months after the announcement of the mass firing of the direct sales team in Germany and the stock had fallen from about $15 to about $8. To my eyes/ears, he expressed genuine surprise that it had fallen so much...so I can only imagine how he feels now. So many success stories, so many lives saved, no pending cash shortfall or anticipated dilution, so much potential...and here we are. Don't know what to say, other than I have to see any product shortfall or serious competition, so...maybe just like bitcoin's recent bounce, maybe CTSO's turnaround from $6 to $12 to $18 will be in just a matter of weeks, we just never know. No one knows. But I have yet to see a more promising multi-home run opportunity, so I'm still in the lifeboat, still sipping water and watching the sky.
First off, raptor, my hat's off to you for your Vietnam service, I sincerely mean that. Communism was the single greatest evil of the 20th century, and no one dies in vain fighting that murderous/dehumanizing beast. Can't believe socialism is suddenly acceptable in the USA, defies belief.
I did fly the ageing Stratofortress (you'll never see an article about the Buff without the 'ageing' adjective), was a '38 IP, too, so your Raptor moniker has always intrigued me. I have friends of freinds who have flown against the F-22, and they just shake their heads; Viper or Eagle, its not even close. And not making the full production run of those aircraft might have been the single biggest defense-related mistake we've made, China would have serious second thoughts about starting anything against thirty Raptor squadrons.
Re: your investing strategy and CTSO, you're obviously a much better stock picker than me. I did subscribe to the Motley Fool for a while, and they did recommend ISRG. I bought some at $40, it didn't move for a few months, so i sold it...and I think after the various splits, that's like a 20 or 30 bagger now. So when I found MSBT, I told myself just to hold it. So I have. I missed the 6 cent shares, my lowest entry was 10 cents, and now my average is in the $7.00 range. So - underwater for now, but until I see a valid technical reason for me to doubt the efficacy of the product, I'm in. No competition, totally safe, a cheap alternative to drug treatments (and for sepsis now, I don't think there are any viable drug treatemnts) and apparently, many possible non-sepsis uses.
So that's what's so frustrating, because with a product like this, I think we should at least be in the 20's/30's. I think I predicted $28 by the end of 2019, so right now, we have a ways to go. But right now, I see no single better investment opportunity, so it's the only stock I own. All in!
Thanks, Burnt, I read this report earlier in the week. It reads pretty positive to me, but I'm a bit surprised the efficacy numbers aren't a bit stronger, i.e., the septic patient mortality rate reduction from 78% to 65% using CTSO's filter, and the observed mortality of 29% vs the predicted 31% for CPB patients (I'm not even sure what that is; cardio bypass surgery?).
I think a number of the "early" studies, those of the last few years, showed a bias toward delayed/late usage of the filter, and they also seemed to run them for 16 - 24 hours before replacing them. So maybe that's why the apparent results weren't more impressive. Then again, maybe these results are impressive, I'm no doctor or clinician; but based on the cases of the week and the tens of thousands of successes, I know I would certainly want a CTSO filter in my cardio loop if anything went south. The one consistent finding through the years has been 100% safe.
And thanks for all your posts!
Hello, raptor, three questions:
1. I'm wondering how investors like yourself find out about companies like EXAS and CTSO in their early stages. Is investing your full time gig? Do you susbcribe to a particular newsletter, or do you find your companies via your own DD?
2. I found CTSO on the NEPH board back in the MSBT days. I have met Dr Chan and was impressed by his acumen and enthusiasm, and he was very personable as well, so I have no problem with him and certainly none with the product. But like everyone else, I am disappointed with the risk/reward ratio to date; that is, we could have been invested in any number of large cap stocks like Boeing or Microsoft for the last 5 years and made 5x with much less risk. So my question is - do you think 2019 is our breakout year? I still think we'll see mid $20's by year's end; do you think that's too optimistic? (I'm hoping a surprise announcement + low float gets us quickly back to $15 and above).
3. Did you fly the F-22?
Oohh-rah!
100%
Regarding the silence on this board the last few days, it reminds me of the time some frustrated CTSO shareholders were waiting for Dr Chan to arrive on the afternoon train.
The shareholders got there early and had to wait, but when the train finally arrived, it looked like the CEO had stood them up.
Then they heard his harmonica...and realized they forgot his horse.
Any doctors in the ihub audience?
Is "spectacular" in the clinical vernacular?
from the case of the week, "the combination of Cytosorb incorporated into a running VA ECMO circuit was associated with a decrease in catecholamine requirements and a spectacular clinical recovery"
Thanks, dah! So, I'm curious: can the results of these 348 patients be further quantified and catalogued to show clinical efficacy? Or does a clinical trial require much tighter parameters? It does seem like a decent number of patients showing a positive outcome, but I don't know a thing about clinical trials. Do they need a control arm of similar patients who did not use Cytosorb to make a clinical conclusion?
With over 50,000 patients who have used the product, it sure seems like we have an abundance of real world data. And further, it sure seems like the data points toward the one simple fact that, at least for sepsis, IT WORKS.
So I wonder, if the head of the FDA was suffering from sepsis, would he/she not want to give this a whirl? I would.
I think its just a disease of bureacracies, of both large corporations and governemnts; the bigger they get, the less responsive and effective they are. Cripes, just get of the way, especially when people are sick and dying and the product has never demonstrated any safety issues.
And I hope today's pop is the start of a long march to new highs!
Thanks for the post, caesare! Many things sound promising, and I think we just need one to pop to turn this ship around. Ply those Fresenius guys with some Pabst - in Germany, a high-priced import - and I look forward to your follow-up in the coming weeks!
I hear you Burnt. But as a CEO of a publicly traded company, I suspect he has to be very circumspect in what he says...and doesn't say. We live in a piranha-lawyer world, and one of the worst things a CEO of a start-up company can do is put everything at risk because he "misled" investors.
Chan is driven by success. He does not want to fail. He's likely too busy to read any retail investor boards, but I'm sure he gets an earful from the big shareholders and institutions. Now, if they start dumping? Maybe that's an ominous signal...or maybe it's just that they think they have a better opportunity somewhere else. We're trying to see through a wall, and the lack of information leads to frustration and accusations across the board.
Much of my retirement is tied up in this, and every financial advisor would tell me I'm playing Russian roulette. Maybe, but until I see some evidence this product has a chink in its armor - regardless of what our CEO says or doesn't say, I'm all aboard.
I think most of us are all in the same boat, this USS CTSO that's been at sea for over 10 years. We're supposed to be getting closer, landfall is always just over the horizon, but every nautical mile yields the same slate-gray clouds as last month and last year. Sometimes we catch a tailwind, we all still remember the brief gusts that drove us to $15, but then the tradewinds die, then we just wallow for months. So the crew starts to mutter, we look for anyone to blame, and rightly or wrongly, the captain bears the brunt. Maybe he should have sailed farther west, maybe he should have struck out to the north, it's all second guessing from the bilge and bunks to the crow's nest high up.
Unlike the Navy, though, we can jump ship anytime. As for me, I'll stay a while longer, at least till the end of the year, because I have yet to see any evidence this patented device does not save lives; and further, that it has the potential to save many more.
Remember Columbus? Short on water and food with no hope left, his crew was just days away from mutiny. So yeah, for those who stay, we may go down with the ship. But I think there's land out there, so I'm sticking around.
Re: this small clinical study, does anyone with a medical background have a reaction to the results/conclusion? Is it a neutral result?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30944029
Thanks also for your input and opinions, dah, much appreciated! Question: have you (or anyone else on the board) heard any rumors on what to expect for revenue numbers next month? Any expectations or leaks from sales people in Europe?
We're in the same boat, DrNak, exactly the same experience w both stocks.
I still believe this is the year CTSO launches, though, there's just too many applications and all these case studies and small clinical trials keep pointing to the same result that...the filter works!
Great! Thanks for the Board of Directors education, maybe he picked this other poition because there might be some potential tie-in or networking/publicity oppty for CTSO.
Thanks, techxen. Now, maybe I'm looking at this with a glass-half-empty mindset, but given all the possible myriad medical applications for CTSO, do we really want our CEO to split his time with another company? I'm not sure how extensive/time-consuming his board duties are, but honestly, I just want our CTSO chessmen to focus on the game at hand.
Am I wrong?
Regarding that translated German article published yesterday, I have a question on one of the summary quotes:
"We suspect that it would be advisable to replace the cartridge every 12 hours, as opposed to the current 24-hour treatment protocol."
So my question is, haven't we known this for at least 5 years now, that CTSO recommends replacing the cartridge every 8 hours? I thought that "frequent" changing of the cartridge had been the recommended standard procedure for some time.
True? Not true?
Are hospitals trying to save money and thus the 24 hour cycle time?
Thanks, Bertha! Do you have any expected/predicted timeline for these possible events?
Question for the Usual (informed) Suspects: When and what will be the first major headline event for CTSO in 2019?
Do you think it will be the announcement of some small-scale clinical trial success in Europe, maybe the announcement of a partnership, maybe something to do with cancer treatement?
Just wondering if there is any consensus on what might be coming down the pike, and when that elusive inflection point might arrive.
Thanks!
Ditto and ditto again.
What I would like to know is - on these conference calls, is it possible for the moderator to call on someone like HadToHavit or Bertha or OC or Raptor or Techxen or Paulness or Burnt? Is there a way "the little guy" can be heard on one of these earnings calls, is there anyone here with access to Dr Chan or one of his associates wo could request a platform to ask our questions and state our concerns? For those of us who have been here since 9 cents and less, have we not "earned" the right to be heard?
FYI, Dr Chan did give me 45 minutes of his time after an investor presentation about 5 years ago in Los Angeles, some hotel right near the 405/Sunset Blvd. I'm just a dope, no medical experience other than my appendicitis, but he seemed very willing to talk to some Joe Blow investor like me, he didn't even ask how many shares I had.
In summary, I propose we hold an informal iHub vote on nominating someone to represent "the little guy," then we contact Dr Chan or one of his associates and ask for a chance to ask about 5 minutes worth of questions at the next call. Anyone with me? Anyone?
Based on a Motley Fool newsletter, I invested in ISRG when it was $40/share. It didn't appreciate immediately, just sat there for a while - I was a new investor with limited funds, and "a while" probably meant all of 2 months - so I sold.
I will not sell my CTSO.
CTSO has a product that will dwarf anything ISRG could ever bring to market, and unlike ISRG, CTSO has no real competition and can save more lives than a dozen ISRG's.
I will not sell my CTSO!
At least not until way past lift-off.
:)
Now, this is why I read this board daily. Thanks for the "rumors," martys12 and bertha! This might be nothing, or it might be the arrival of our elusive inflection point, aka SPEV (Share Price Escape Velocity).
Keep the intel coming!
Burnt and Bertha and Orangecat and Andy and Ceasar and Hemo and to everyone else waking up to 2019, hope you all had a Merry Christmas and God Bless your 2019! I've been reading your posts for years so it seems I almost know some of you, so thanks again to keep small$ investors like me up to speed.
I see a steady rise in SP to $25 and beyond this year, and barring some major market meltdown, I think it will be independent of a larger bear market or short term unsteadiness.
Lets see CTSO's value finally reflect its ability to save lives!
Hello, Axel, I've been a CRMD holder for only about 3 mths now. Question: More often than not, the SP seems to drop the day of and days after a company's quarterly call, and this is regardless of how good the news on the call seems to be. So what's your gut tell you about the SP for CRMD, is a lot of anticipation baked in for some surprising news tomorrow? Do you anticipate a temporary tumble (a few days to a few weeks) after the call?
Saturday Night Prediction: CTSO will be above $25/share by this time next year. After at least one partnership and increasing sales to overall profitability and at least one study showing positive clinical outcomes for some application of the device, 2019 will be a year of much greater exposure and investor awareness, and we will achieve a successful 2nd stage light and escape velocity.
And no, I haven't been drinking.
Strap in!
Agree, Burnt. Is anyone aware of a similar product in any industry - something so cheap, safe, effective, and with so little competition - that has been such a slow mover in SP appreciation? I understand FDA approval counts for a lot - then again, re: ACRX, maybe not - but for a simple filtration device to be able to potentially save so many lives and reduce so much cost, how are we still at $10?
I don't know much (anything) about SP manipulation, but I wonder if there's some kind of coordinated buying/selling by some large pharma that stands to lose market share if CTSO takes off. I'm not a conspiracy nut - we DID leave footprints on the moon - so maybe I'm just a nut, but I just don't get the lack of traction since our MSBT days.
Hopefully 2019 will be Inflection time. Or, to paraphrase A. B. Shepherd, "let's light this candle!"
Congrats, bertha, you've just won the CTSO PR job! It doesn't pay much, but you will get your own parking spot in New Jersey.
Market Question: The last 10 days have been tough on the NASDAQ as a whole, but we've seen a nice (hopefully persistent) reversal in both CTSO and some other bio stocks I follow. So my question is, does anyone think we're on the front end of a potential inflow of new buyers out of the Apples and Facebooks and etc, and into bio stocks like CTSO? I know my snapshot is only 10 days, but just wondering what others with higher investment processing power think.
Perfectly said, fantom, and I second the sentiment: Happy Thanksgiving to all and may God Bless America!
Seemingly all of a sudden, the rumors/expectations of upcoming news are trending steeply positive. Thanks to all who contribute their research and insight to spread the word on ihub, I appreciate it very much!
Frustrating price drop, but it's not just CTSO. I have 2 other bio stocks and both just passed significant milestones, yet both are abysmally down.
Not to worry, though, we can always invest in cryptocurrency.
Re: the similar SOFA score results (and I'm not a doctor or researcher), but the way I read the conclusion of the study hyperlinked below, any reduction in "big endothelin-1" looks to be a very desirable outcome:
"In a large population of patients with symptomatic heart failure, the circulating concentration of Big ET-1, a precursor of the paracrine and bioactive peptide ET-1, was an independent marker of mortality and morbidity. In this setting, BNP remained the strongest neurohormonal prognostic factor."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16762801
Music to my ears, caesare! Thanks for sharing your unique perspective/input, we've got some great people/posters on this board.
Question: Do you still think we'll be break-even/profitable by the end of this year? To me, that's not a huge milestone, we have much bigger events in our near-medium term future, but just wondering if you thought that was still possible.
Ignore the catcalls, bertha, your posted info may sometimes be "well-known" to some, but it's usually news to me. You've been the single best source of info on CTSO for years, so please keep the downloads coming. However, if you could bump the share price up to about $15-$16 by Christmas, that would be most appreciated.