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It will be interesting to see which of the current directors is retained.
Comatose Cortex showing a little brain activity?
Leave it to them to ruin a good paradox...
Of course the ampa science is not doomed,just deferred while patients remain in harms way.
I think you are very wrong: It is Rodman & Renshaw whom we discounted. As shady as they are, they are worlds better at business then the leech machine at Cortex.
Lilly? They are simply in another galaxy. That is not to say they were far more advanced in Ampakines then Cortex/UC (the inventors, mind you). Nor does it imply the science is doomed. I think it is disingenuous for you to suggest that we should have seen this coming because of Lilly's choice (but par for the course, fo' sho').
Maybe the powers-that-be consider most of those lives expendable. Ya' gotts keep the factories churning--there's always going to be new customers to compensate for the loss of return business. The question is: why isn't there enough outrage? Cortex should have been the premiere voice to broadcast these potentially unnecessary and unanswered fatalities; a lobbying effort which could have saved their sorry asses and ours. No backbone, no heart, and at this point, no soul. They even paid for the research many years ago!
Some people just don't know what to do with a good hand...
but anyone who doubts that Mark Varney is talking to anyone and everyone who will listen...
Evidence grows for narcolepsy link to GSK swine flu shot
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/22/us-narcolepsy-vaccine-pandemrix-idUSBRE90L07H20130122
(Both were probably Obama voters)
Gee whiz, Davey, how will I ever move on? One leg at a time, I guess. Maybe I'll just 'lie' around for a while, as a tribute to you.
Gosh, Davey, I love you too.
Now, take off your blinders, look in the mirror, and ask yourself one question: If I would have listened to the 'naysayers,' and hedged my investment based on those concerns, what would my portfolio look like now?
Don't feel too bad though -- Some of the naysyers, myself included, did not listen to there own voice, either.
Varney is currently working for free.
When Cortex finalizes its' epic fail, I will have lost my investment, but gained perspective
As John Lennon said, "But I'm not the only one."
Thanks sparky. Eom
I blame Neuro for his protectionism (of management) and his inflexibility, and for his arrogance to support and maintain his position. At best, he sabotaged his own credibility; at worst, he enabled and perpetuated the failings of this company. My loss is a matter of personal responsibility, and I've said as much, over and over again.
I was just misguided and ignorant about the regulatory environment and the sector
I'll try, sparky, but someone's got to pay :)
No doubt a great deal of your feelings of inferiority among such distinguished people had to do with your atrocious investment record and unwavering defense (still to this day) of a gravely underachieving company and management, respectively. You should be humbled on your own merits. How my foretelling of this shameful mess -- which you no doubt helped to perpetuate -- makes you feel grand, well, that's for you to figure out. Not responding to my baseless, ignorant rants (your assumption, I'm sure), together with introspection, would be a good start. If you can rise to that level of restraint and awareness, respectively, then maybe you can claim some level of nobility. Pass that lesson of dignity along to your Cortex peers, lol.
Ps. I gave up on depth and insight a long time ago, but still more recently then the time which Cortex gave up.
The other interesting thing was this: One of the scientists there knew Varney from the past, and seemed to have followed the story from afar. He commented: "Mark Varney did a great job trying to advance that compound."
When this board is being barraged by its own versions of Donald Trump howling ad nauseum about birth certificates, keep in mind that their information-base is limited to their own imaginations.
They got on the Tran train. No explanation for that abrupt departure either. Clearly, it doesn't take long to unearth the empty cave that lies within the skulls of their listless bodies. Like Rodney Dangerfield, they get no respect.
RIP Rodney -- at least it was just shtick for you: It's guys like these that give you your material.
Ps. I hope they're better with their families then they are with their business.
Why not just petition to bring Stoll back. I mean really -- we've had enough suffering.
Nice post. Well, in the end (of the day or otherwise), I'd say we are all pretty fucked up. The difference, I think, is determined by how much your fuck up screws up others (and how many). I'd surmise Stoll, Varney,and NeuroInvestment did a pretty good job making a difference (at fucking up others, that is). Having an agenda is a curse, which unfortunately many of us bear in some shapes or forms. The agenda took hold of these people like an addiction. I realized they were BS a long time ago, but, stupidly, didn't sell. I don't blame them for my loss, I blame them for Cor's loss. Since loyalty is important to me, I would probably go through this again. Many times it pays off: this time it didn't. I have no regrets, just minor humiliation (I probably cut in half the value of the kids ugma account -- maybe that's why I take it so personal, lol). Eventually something will progress with the Ampa receptor--the potential is there. But in the end, it's still just another synthetic drug with a host of potential and unknown complications, and we all will die regardless, either as a result of it, or despite it. The rat race goes on...
Neuro said that AMPA upregulation (ionotropic variety) is no longer being pursued much by pharmas.
My two 1/2 cents-
Something's amiss? You don't say. It's been amiss ever since the toxicology cover-up. It's just that now they can't keep the charade going any longer.
Yes, Neuro was instrumental in protecting an abysmal management team. He is as culpable as the other stooges. It is detestable that he used his expertise and credentials to dress up this corpse and pass it off as a living, breathing entity--especially on this forum. He is more despicable then Varney, who didn't try to bullshit/spin his way thru his term. Stoll, on the other hand, was the cream-of-the-crap: high morale; inlicensing to provide many shots on goal; ongoing patnership talks; high expectations; interest in High Impacts--will partner soon; billion dollar market potential; Eureka!, it was an artifact (99% likelihood). In other words, he was full of pork. I'll bet the apologist was coaching/domesticating this pig the entire way. No wonder they failed: the pigsty screamed of bias and smelled of bile. Patco, a former poster, smelled it long ago. He also had a sense of humor about it. If you can't change it, I think that is the best way out. My weakness here is my loyalty, and perhaps my indecisiveness; not my instincts, nor my sense of reason. I take full responsibility for following the fatal course. But that doesn't change the fact that there were was serious incompetence at nearly all levels of this organization--notwithstanding the industry and regulatory shortcomings and oversights along the way.
Gfp, you also share some blame in the misperceptions and distortions that were cooked up here, but at least you balanced yourself with your less optimistic board identities/personalities (ie., iggs, urko, asuhowe...maybe even good ole' Jim Haynes, etal) :)
The good thing is, and this makes me very happy, we should be moving on soon.
Cheers to the near future. See you in Lost Vegas!
Ps. Just for the hell of it, do we have a NP price target? Don't forget the decimal points. TIA
Recently, Dr. Oz attacked the benefits of organic food and this could mark the end of his career
Two pennies for a thought...
Management, the BOD, and the 'apologist', have been an abject and utter failure to this organization and its' paid-in shareholders.
No if's, and's, or Big Pharma but's...
Ps. But I'm sure if they diluted a little bit more, everything would have been completely different :) What a perspective!
Pss. The stone should read:
Corhex...turning wins and hope into losses and despair...
I like the metaphor here:
Russia says West pushing democracy with "iron and blood"
By Steve Gutterman | Reuters – 3 hrs ago
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Western states on Saturday of trying to advance democracy abroad through "iron and blood", defending Moscow's refusal to join nations seeking the exit of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Echoing comments made by Vladimir Putin, Lavrov made his sharply-worded address to a foreign and defense policy council meeting two days before the Russian president travels to Turkey where the war in Syria is expected to dominate talks.
"Russia is not opposing Western influence or putting a stick in the spokes of Western-initiated projects out of spite," Lavrov said, according to state-run news agency Itar-Tass.
"The fact is, advancing democracy through iron and blood just does not work, and this has been made clear in recent months - the past year-and-a-half," he said.
He added "in most cases it produces the opposite reaction" and leads to "the strengthening of extremists and repressive forces, decreasing the chances of real democratic change."
Moscow says Western and Gulf states are encouraging rebels seeking the overthrow of Assad while the United States and Europe accuse the Kremlin of shielding the Syrian president during 20 months of bloodshed.
Russia says Assad's exit from power cannot be imposed from abroad and has voiced concern extremists could gain the upper hand in Syria and other states following Arab Spring revolts, further destabilizing the region.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov, in a meeting with Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, said the situation has been worsened by a "sharp increase in the activities of terrorist organizations" including al Qaeda.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, Gatilov also repeated Russia's concern the conflict "is taking on a clearly expressed inter-religious element."
Russia has denied it is propping up Assad but says it will not allow a repeat of what occurred last year in Libya.
It says NATO overstepped the bounds of a U.N. Security Council mandate for intervention to protect civilians in its determination to help rebels oust Muammar Gaddafi.
(Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Sophie Hares)
These transactions aren’t bug [sic] enough to really impress me, but they do show that multiple insiders thought the share price was undervalued.
DuPont-Dow Corn Defeated by Armyworms in Florida: Study
By Jack Kaskey - Nov 16, 2012 3:33 PM ET
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-16/dupont-dow-corn-defeated-by-armyworms-in-florida-study.html?cmpid=yhoo
Fall armyworms in southern Florida survived a pesticide engineered into corn by Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) and DuPont Co., the second insect to show signs of resistance to genetically modified crops in the U.S., according to a study.
Fall armyworms ate the leaves of corn engineered to produce an insecticidal protein and lived, according to 2012 field trial data presented Nov. 13 at a conference in Knoxville, Tennessee. The protein is marketed by Dow and DuPont as Herculex.
“This is most likely field resistance,” Fangneng Huang, an assistant professor at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, said at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America.
The study follows last year’s discovery in Iowa that rootworms have developed resistance to Monsanto Co. (MON)’s corn. Concern that the insecticides are failing is prompting farmers to apply more chemicals, unwinding the primary environmental benefit of pest-fighting crops, Michael Gray, an entomologist at the
University of Illinois in Urbana, said in a Nov. 14 presentation at the conference.
Fall armyworms, the caterpillar stage of a moth, got the name because infestations move between fields like a marching army, typically in autumn. The insect can survive U.S. winters only in southern Florida and Texas, limiting its range as a pest to the southeast.
Dow hasn’t seen Huang’s data and can’t confirm his claims, Garry Hamlin, a spokesman for the Midland, Michigan-based company, said in an e-mail. A finding of armyworm resistance “would seem to have little agronomic significance for U.S. growers operating north of Tampa,” he said.
‘Minimal Amount’
DuPont’s Pioneer seed unit sells “a minimal amount” of corn with the Cry1F protein in Florida and doesn’t expect a business impact, Josh St. Peters, a spokesman for the Wilmington, Delaware-based company, said in an e-mail. A Dow study earlier this year found no indications of armyworm resistance, he said.
Armyworm isn’t a primary target of the insecticide produced by the crop, the companies said separately.
The companies will work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates pesticides, to determine the next steps. Dale Kemery, an EPA spokesman, had no immediate comment when reached by phone yesterday.
Fall armyworm resistance to the insecticide was first discovered in Puerto Rico in 2006, prompting Dow and DuPont to voluntarily stop selling the product on the island, according to the EPA’s registration for the product.
Biggest Business
DuPont’s agriculture unit is its largest business, generating 24 percent of company sales last year, including $4.31 billion in corn seed revenue. Dow’s agriculture unit, which doesn’t break out seed sales, had $5.66 billion of revenue last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Also contributing to the armyworm study were scientists from the USDA, University of Florida, University of Minnesota and Louisiana State University.
Resistance to Monsanto’s rootworm-killing protein is suspected in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Nebraska, the EPA said last year. There’s “mounting evidence” the engineered corn is losing its effectiveness in the Midwest, the agency said in August.
Syngenta AG (SYNN)’s Agrisure corn may have “cross-resistance” with Monsanto’s insecticide, meaning the crop is vulnerable to the same rootworms that are no longer killed by Monsanto’s toxin, according to other presentations at the conference this week.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Kaskey in Houston at jkaskey@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net
I was beginning to wonder the brain cell count of pure Obama haters: now it is starting to make sense...
Drugs and alcohol are killers, not Obama. lol
I guess it could be a niche, but, who in their right mind would screw with synthetic shit, when the natural herb (in many varieties) can do the trick? I guess if the pharmachine is well oiled in this area, then that would easily tip the scales. Therein lies the problem with medicine industry, and the ignorance of people.
Bless their hearts...
On the contrary, I think it was quite refreshing.
Ps. How big the deal was to Mozambique, I think, was irrelevant to the purpose of the posting.
Cargill has announced a massive three-year partnership
Varney was lost in translation. When Samyang was visiting the new Irvine dive, they tried to teach Varney Gangnam Style. He misinterpreted the meaning as 'Gagman Style'.
I still think it's better then Stoll's business style: Leech on a Pig on a Board.
Explosion At Neptune Technologies & Bioresources Facility In Sherbrooke, Quebec
CP | By Nelson Wyatt, The Canadian Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/11/08/explosion-sherbrooke-quebec-neptune_n_2094128.html#slide=1739807
SHERBROOKE, Que. - Shortly after two people were found dead amid the ruins of a plant explosion loud enough to be heard for kilometres around, firefighters digging in the rubble found a terrified survivor safe and sound.
"She was hiding in the debris and she was hiding because she was scared," said Const. Rene Dubreuil, a Sherbrooke police spokesman. "This person was found by firefighters when they made a search of the building to find people who were missing."
The survivor was not identified nor were the dead, who were found as firefighters combed the ruins of the decimated processing plant. A statement from the company identified the dead as employees.
The blast and fire, which produced a thick, dark cloud of toxic smoke, sent 19 other people to hospital, some with severe burns.
The incident occurred in Quebec's Eastern Townships at the Sherbrooke facility belonging to Neptune Technologies & Bioressources, which produces health products such as Omega-3 derived from marine life.
The local 911 line was immediately flooded with a record number of calls, authorities said.
Martin Carrier, a Sherbrooke police spokesman, said more than 100 people in Sherbrooke and surrounding boroughs such as Fleurimont and Lennoxville phoned within a minute.
"They heard the explosion," Carrier said. "It was a big noise. A lot of black smoke. You could see it everywhere in the city."
When first responders arrived at the plant, they beheld a scene of devastation as workers fled for safety.
"We've got people injured inside, we've got people injured outside," Carrier said.
"Some were walking, helped by another. It was a chaotic scene," he said. "Pretty tough."
Firefighters probed the tangled building carefully, looking for potential victims. Among the 19 injured, four were transported to a burn unit in Montreal; two were in an intensive-care unit in Sherbrooke; seven were quickly released from hospital; and six were held for observation.
The bodies of the dead and the additional survivor were found later in the day.
It was the first of two major fires Thursday in Quebec.
Hours later, flames were skipping off a rooftop in Old Montreal as emergency crews were called in to deal with a blaze a block away from the famous Notre-Dame Basilica, close to the Montreal La Presse newspaper which had to be evacuated. There were no reports of injuries in the Montreal fire.
But the Sherbrooke blaze was potent enough that smoke kept drifting up for hours, even after fire crews had contained the flames, while an acrid stench continued to hover in the air.
The plant lay in ruins. The only walls that remained standing in the twisted ruins were scorched black by the flames. The steady stream of water poured on remaining flames as a gentle snow began to fall produced a hissing sound as it turned to steam in the frigid night air.
Giant excavator tractors, usually seen on construction sites digging out foundations for buildings, were brought in to claw gingerly through tangled debris under spotlights from fire department aerial ladders as night darkened.
"Just looking at the damage to the building you can see it was probably very violent," said Gaetan Drouin, head of the local fire service.
"Even before the 911 calls came in (one fire station) already had many firefighters on the way. They set off the alarm bells just from seeing the plume of smoke that shot up into the sky."
Fears about toxic smoke stemmed from the plant's 15,000-litre reserve of acetone, a flammable substance consumed by the fire.
When ingested, acetone can cause irritation. However, local health officials downplayed the toxic threat, suggesting people might potentially experience headaches or nausea but little else because of the smoke.
Environment Quebec said it was actually more concerned about the possibility of soil or water contamination than of the risk associated with breathing the air near the blast site.
It's unclear what caused the explosion. An investigation is underway.
There was at least one large blast followed by a series of smaller ones. Police set up a security perimeter and cleared the area around the industrial park.
One man who lives nearby said: "I was working in the garage and I heard a loud, 'Boom.' Then we were evacuated." Another neighbour said the flames were visible from blocks away. Both declined to give their names.
Within minutes of the blast, police said, employees had been evacuated from the facility and supervisors were performing a head count outdoors.
Residents were asked to avoid the area around the industrial park. "We're asking people to stay away... These are possibly toxic clouds," said Rene Dubreuil of the Sherbrooke police.
The Laval-based company announced plans last year to expand its Sherbrooke facility. The federal government supported the project with an interest-free loan and the Quebec government provided a grant, according to an announcement made earlier this year by then-premier Jean Charest.
Shares of the company (NASDAQ:NEPT) plunged 10 per cent during a sell-off in less than a half-hour of trading following the incident.
The company called in a psychiatric support team to help traumatized workers. It promised to co-operate with police during the investigation.
"We're in terrible shock over what's happened," said Michel Chartrand, chief of operations for the company.
Funny comment from the radio today...
Glenn Beck decided that today (Fri., Oct. 26th) is the day where he 'officially' declares that he "no longer recognizes my country." As he did so, he paused, and said, "this segment sponsored by Goldline..."
I cracked up. The point is: it was much funnier than hearing,"When Bill Maher is against you, it's over." :)
I do however think there is a differentiation between greedy and great; the former being quasi-prominent and the latter being needlessly latent.
Blatch-Forgetting about Cortex is like picking weeds: You can get rid of them temporarily, but they keep coming back.
Forget Ampakines the 'drug', though. Laughing is the best medicine anyway! :)
And now for the punchline...dronabinol:
Solvay and Valeant want their drug back...
And based on my own experience in talking with companies, that says much more about the pharma industry than it does about Cortex.
lol. eom
Why, that's almost two-bits! About as good as can be expected from snot-nosed shysters like Stoll? He built this mess with BS and the BOD, not BP (as 'NP' would like you to believe). Don't believe the hype. Seriously, don't believe it...there is no integrity in it! I'm out thousands of dollars...because I let myself be duped. I pity those who lost more, notwithstanding that it's all relative. Lesson learned in loading up the basket.
The good thing about an 'investment,' is that you can change it. The bad thing is that it can go from a piece of gold to a piece of shit--and quickly, as most of us know. The better thing is a perspective. You can change it without making the shit so...tangible. You can't hide your bitterness though, can ya'?
Seriously. What's the significance of a four-bagger when you're down 95-99%? From an investment standpoint, you're screwed, devastated, either way. I guess anything more is better than nothing more...
From a 'perspective,' it doesn't matter much. The reality is this: Fuck me once, shame on you. Fuck me twice? Shame on me. You move on and away...
Star Scientific's 'Flint' Study Flops (speaking of Feuerstein--on another recent thread)
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11746897/1/star-scientifics-flint-study-flops.html?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO
By Adam Feuerstein10/24/12 - 12:13 PM EDT
GLEN ALLEN, Va. (TheStreet) --Star Scientific's (STSI) "Flint" study is a flop.
Here's what Star Scientific said Wednesday:
The "Flint" study... is a multi-site study of the safety, tolerability, dosing, and biological effects of the anatabine citrate used in Rock Creek Pharmaceutical's Anatabloc product. Subjects in the study are individuals with high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) in the blood, which is a marker of systemic inflammation in a number of common medical conditions. The subjects were screened for eligibility and then were studied for three months. In the first month they were given placebo, in the second month they were given the Anatabloc supplement, and in the third month they were given placebo again. Blood samples were taken at the beginning of the study and also were taken after each treatment period... The intent of the study is to determine if the Anatabloc supplement is helpful in lowering CRP.
It's true that CRP is a biomarker for systemic inflammation and can be a risk factor for cardiovascular and other diseases. But assessing CRP levels in a vacuum is clinically meaningless because 1) the correlation between increased CRP levels and disease is disputed and unclear, and 2) FDA doesn't approve drugs based on an ability to lower CRP.
Anatabloc lowers CRP? So what, lots of stuff lowers CRP. Aspirin, NSAID anti-inflammatories and a host of other drugs lower CRP. Exercise and dieting can lower CRP, as can vitamins E and C. Heck, even eating dark chocolate lowers CRP by 17%, according to Italian researchers. If you don't like chocolate, eat more fruits and vegetables because they lower CRP, too.
Maybe Anatabloc does a really super job of lowering CRP? Maybe the over-the-counter diet supplement is more effective than chocolate?
Not so much. Here's Star Scientific again:
The subjects who showed relative reductions in CRP were diabetics on metformin, the most common drug used to treat diabetes. The diabetics were twice as likely to have a reduction in CRP levels, as compared with other subjects in the "Flint" study who had other non-diabetes medical disorders. After one month of supplementation, CRP levels dropped in 26% of the subjects with diabetes, compared with a drop in CRP levels in 12% of the general trial population of subjects who did not have diabetes.
The goal of the study was to find specific sub-populations in which the Anatabloc supplement might be of benefit; therefore, this finding, though based on a small number of diabetics (18 in the total study population), is very encouraging. The investigators are currently evaluating whether to modify the rest of the study or conduct a study focused on diabetes.
Let's do some math. Star Scientific at the top of today's press release that 100 patients completed the Flint study. [Later in the release, Star says 117 patients completed treatment.]
Let's go with the 100 patients, of which 18 had diabetes, according to Star. CRP levels dropped in 26% of diabetic patients after one month of Anatabloc, which equates to five (!!) diabetic patients.
It also means that 13 diabetic patients either had CRP levels that remained unchanged or went up!
Of course, Star also neglects to tell us anything about the numerical reduction in CRP levels. What was the mean baseline CRP level for diabetics entering the Anatabloc study? How low did CRP levels go? Star Scientific doesn't disclose. Why not? If Anatabloc lowers CRP as the company claims, then tell us by how much.
More math: If there were 18 diabetic patients analyzed, that leaves 82 non-diabetic patients, of which 12% or 10 patients, showed lower CRP levels after swallowing Antabloc.
Again, that implies 72 non-diabetic patients had CRP levels that remained unchanged or went up.
Star Scientific calls these results positive. I call them a total joke and completely misleading. The timing of today's release is also interesting, coming one day after disclosure of the paltry $5 million settlement in the long-running legal spat with R.J. Reynolds.
If you want to lower CRP levels, take an Advil or buy a chocolate bar.
-- Reported by Adam Feuerstein in Boston.