Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
OT-interesting is your reply as well.
I thought out a long and laborious reply, but decided to pose just the following:
What if Dew was not a personal professional investor, but really a hedge fund manager with billions at his disposal. Do you think that his posts carry weight in the fluctuations of stock prices for some of the co.'s he comments on?
And this thought. The govt. is not in the business of policing information posted in public, just as it's not in charged of looking for every crime ever committed. They do, however, choose to use the information about law breaking provided to them to prosecute those who have come to their attention. The sad thing is that they don't bother with much of the minor infractions even when they are informed. Just as the police ignore my partner's pleas to go down to Target and review the video of the person who stole his wallet and used his credit card one hour later, they refuse to answer complaints made by retail investors that insiders pass inside information on to others before publicly announced news, benefitting the insiders. When this happens on the buy side, the govt really could care less.
JM2C
aj
"I'm sure lots of CEO's are tempted to post online, even to yahoo. I'm not sure why this is such bad news from the standpoint of the govt. He pumped the stock. Said he was long, shopped at the market's and intended to be long for a long time."
According to the article he pumped WFMI while also bashing OATS (which he had an eye on acquiring and is now having to justify the attempted acquisition.) This seems much more than the appearance of impropriety by an insider, to me. IMO, the rules should keep insiders from the public forum so as to avoid ANY appearance of conflict, undue influence, or other agenda that benefits them personally or benefits their company. I'm sure the SEC spells this out very clearly and those who listen to public statements made during conference calls and the Q&A sessions all are familiar with the "dance that corporate officers do to avoid crossing the line of those rules. See the article below
http://www.agoracom.com/ir/patriot/messages/564597#messageMUST
aj
"I cannot confirm this as I do not have access to the report."
Nor can I except to report that Cambridge Heart is listed on the J Giordano Securities home page with Today's date, so it is likely an accurate report from our RagingBull friend fourtosixweeks.
Best Regards Geoff and others,
aj
"Funny, I've got an open mind, but I haven't met an honest lawyer yet."
Then you haven't looked very far.
I'm a doctor who does a considerable amount of forensic work because I specialize in traumatic brain injury. I deal with personal injury lawyers and defense lawyers all the time and see both the worst that can come out of a foul smelling pit of crap to the finest people I've had the privilege to work with in this arena. It's funny, I've been stiffed by lawyers for my services three times in my career, but never by a defense lawyer.
I have three patents, and have a patent lawyer who has helped me tremendously over the last 8 years. He's the most mild mannered and technically adroit and thorough thinker I've met.
My closest friend is a family lawyer who takes on any and all types of cases including Paula Jones (and has had the privilege to argue in front of the supreme court on that and one other case), but mostly handles family related business for three generations of family and their friends. He's the guy I'd call at 4:00am if I ever needed to get bailed out.
It takes all kinds and there are plenty on both sides of the track. If you didn't realize, most all JUDGES who sit in our country's courts are also lawyers.
end of diatribe
aj
For anyone who might misinterpret my comments (#49237) on the tiers of quality of care in the US healthcare system, I am NOT in favor of universal health care, but am in favor of a legislated playing field, leveled so that the tiers identified have more or less the same minimum access to services, and the eventual elimination of uninsured.
Mental Health care is a good example of how poorly distributed care is and how medicare is actually the first tier in the system for those problems.
That said, I will make this my last comment and return to addressing biotech values only.
aj
"One thing is for certain, our current system is not serving the public as well as it should. All sides, need to tone down the rhetoric and work for a viable solution."
If we could move the debate to the realities of a 4 tiered healthcare system (commercial vs. medicare vs. medicaid vs. no insurance) in our country and the differences in care amongst these tiers (sometimes medicare is 1st tier, sometimes it's 2nd but medicaid and no insurance clearly suck hind tit) we might get somewhere.
Just got through with a staffing on a patient who had been cancelled from the Med Ctr. neurology clinic and the was refused a new appointment. After calls upon calls by our nurse and med. director, we were finally told that the patient could not see the seizure specialist, but could be scheduled for a resident because he had medicaid only. Our medical director lamented that the med school has a "physicians Practice Group" within the med ctr. that catches all the private insurance. All the other patients (read suckers) get the house staff and interns.
It's broke, how do we fix that short of a shaming front page article in the paper.
aj
I follow TTG, but don't own it. They are the no. 2 co. in the reconditioned human tissue space behind LIFC (which I also follow, have owned, made a considerable amount of money, and highly recommend as a long-term hold).
TTG is a good play in this space. They produce collagen based tissue repair and bone matrix repair products for reconstructive surgery. The announcement that they will enter into the breast recon market is a direct response to LIFC's launch of Alloderm (their flagship product) in the breast recon space about a year ago. Alloderm has gained a big chunk of market share since that launch, helping LIFC to book 40% YOY revenue gains for at least the last 5-6 quarters.
TTG looks like LIFC about 4 years ago. They are now profitable, have a good distribution network (albeit through Bard rather than an internal network which cuts into profitability) and they too are growing at a healthy clip.
Be aware, LIFC has applied for and received a 510K approval for Strattice, a porcine equivalent to Alloderm. This is very important for two reasons. First, the profit margins on acquiring and prepping pig dermis for implantation is MUCH cheaper, and second, the industry generally frowns on using the scarce human skin resource (acquired by both co.'s from a network of tissue banks) for cosmetic products, limiting both LIFC's and TTG's human dermis products to repair and recon surgical procedures.
Strattice is designed to meet the need for breast augmentation market, which could be considerable.
aj
Just had a discussion on the ward today with a psychiatrist colleague who says he sees better results with lyrica for diabetic neuropathic pain when compared to neurontin for his patients and the consults he does in the hospital.
anecdotal, but worth some consideration.
aj
BTW the discussion was in the context of severe neuropathic pain associated with one of my patients who had viral nerve damage in addition to double BKA's in the same month because of poorly managed diabetic infection of the foot. By the time I was consulted by the internist, the patient was on 4 mg of dilaudid 10 minutes before each dressing change because of the severe pain (with no real impact; the patient screamed so loudly that the entire floor was getting upset). I recommended 10mg Zydis at the same time and his pain became tolerable and without the typical zydis SE's of severe sedation.
JM2C for the many physicians out there who haven't given that alternative a try when you've run out of others.
regards
aj
But what about the 1000's (maybe 10,000's) of unused blastocysts sitting in deep freeze in fertility clinics? These are either going to be destroyed or could potentially be used for the same purpose.
Human life is sacred, but a ball of less than 100 cells doesn't define human life IMO.
aj
OT: C'mon, Hauer's positively messianic in the movie. It's also one of Harrison Ford's best roles (Bogartian) as well as one of the saner performances of Sean Young. All'n'all, it deserves to be on the top 100 all time movie list.
aj
OT: Dew, been wondering how it is you have my e-mail address as it's not archived in my account, nor is it in the distribution list for camh.
I'm hoping that you actually DID send the post.
aj
An Answer to my own question.
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct/show/NCT00462228;jsessionid=5BD2D6C3E18A8AAE8218272D9C43651D?order=7
regards
aj
Hey, thanks for the post. I learn something new and fascinating every day.
Memantine has been a big clinical disappointment in my practice with Alzheimer's disease and I still can't understand why the manufacturer hasn't spent more attention and money on trials with tramatic brain injured patients (particularly with the huge number of TBI patients coming back from Iraq.)
I'm glad to see some real data on neuroprotective effects, even if it's just monkeys.
aj
That memantine, a glutamate blocking agent (of suspect efficacy for this) and generically known to physicians as a "neuroprotective agent" is being touted as an ocular nerve protecting drug for glaucoma is strange indeed. I would ask my ophthalmologist his/her rationale for its use. If the answer doesn't include a specific mechanism of action, I would drop it as a waste of money.
regards
aj
Spartex, that's actually medicare billable if you are licensed to use the codes for behavioral health intervention. These are usually accessed by behavioral health psychologists and include 96150, 96151 and 96152, if memory serves (I don't use them but have been encouraged to do so by my guild instead of the typical psychotherapy codes when the focus is on health intervention).
FWIW
aj
Preciouslife, I like the posts as well.
I'm here to educate myself in a sphere that requires more time than any one of us has, except possibly Dew (and I'm curious just how much time you spend and money you make moderating this board Dew?). Your posts are just what the doctor ordered.
aj
Don't know if anyone posts over here about Cambridge Heart (CAMH.OB) as it's more of a med equipment play in cutting edge cardiology, but for those with a passing or deeper interest, the CEO filed today with the SEC a purchase of 50K shares on the open market.
The CAMH longs on RB and I-village see this as very bullish (the guy already owns 4.9 million shares) given the recent comarketing agreement with STJ to get Microvolt T Wave Alternans into the cariologist office and thereby finding more ICD patients.
I know that you have followed and commented on this before, Dew, with the last sentiment being "there's still plenty of time to climb aboard this train". I think that today's filing may indicate that time is running out.
regards
aj
Chi square is a non-parametric test of statistical significance for bivariate tabular analysis (also known as crossbreaks). Any appropriately performed test of statistical significance lets you know the degree of confidence you can have in accepting or rejecting an hypothesis. Typically, the hypothesis tested with chi square is whether or not two different samples (of people, texts, whatever) are different enough in some characteristic or aspect of their behavior that we can generalize from our samples that the populations from which our samples are drawn are also different in the behavior or characteristic.
A non-parametric test, like chi square, is a rough estimate of confidence; it accepts weaker, less accurate data as input than parametric tests (like t-tests and analysis of variance, for example) and therefore has less status in the pantheon of statistical tests. Nonetheless, its limitations are also its strengths; because chi square is more 'forgiving' in the data it will accept, it can be used in a wide variety of research contexts.
Not as dramatic as DNDN, but the fall of NRMX has been just as big. We discussed this as a short candidate several weeks ago and the co. has since reported that they will need to sell equities for cash, which is a bad sign.
$25 to $7 in a couple of months is just as painful; more of a dull chronic ache rather than a sharp stabbing pain.
aj
More likely, the results picque the interest of neuroscientists, but there is much already known about HDAC inhibitors in the learning models, and the finding is unlikely to yield more than candidates with more powerful impact on learning than the extant HDAC inhibitors, including Valproate, or Depakote, which is used in neuroscience paradigms for its HDAC inhibitory effect. Check out the following abstract:
[RESEARCH] Histone modifications around individual BDNF gene promoters in prefrontal cortex are associated with extinction of conditioned fear
Thursday, April 05, 2007, 6:00:00 PM | Bredy, T. W., Wu, H., Crego, C., Zellhoefer, J., Sun, Y. E., Barad, M.
Extinction of conditioned fear is an important model both of inhibitory learning and of behavior therapy for human anxiety disorders. Like other forms of learning, extinction learning is long-lasting and depends on regulated gene expression. Epigenetic mechanisms make an important contribution to persistent changes in gene expression; therefore, in these studies, we have investigated whether epigenetic regulation of gene expression contributes to fear extinction. Since brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is crucial for synaptic plasticity and for the maintenance of long-term memory, we examined histone modifications around two BDNF gene promoters after extinction of cued fear, as potential targets of learning-induced epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Valproic acid (VPA), used for some time as an anticonvulsant and a mood stabilizer, modulates the expression of BDNF, and is a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor. Here, we report that extinction of conditioned fear is accompanied by a significant increase in histone H4 acetylation around the BDNF P4 gene promoter and increases in BDNF exon I and IV mRNA expression in prefrontal cortex, that VPA enhances long-term memory for extinction because of its HDAC inhibitor effects, and that VPA potentiates the effect of weak extinction training on histone H4 acetylation around both the BDNF P1 and P4 gene promoters and on BDNF exon IV mRNA expression. These results suggest a relationship between histone H4 modification, epigenetic regulation of BDNF gene expression, and long-term memory for extinction of conditioned fear. In addition, they suggest that HDAC inhibitors may become a useful pharmacological adjunct to psychotherapy for human anxiety disorders.
Valproate is already used in the therapeutic mix of drugs for a variety of problems associated with Alzheimer's (mostly for the mood stabilizing effects) and I have yet to see any science published on any remarkable improvement in memory or adaptive function for these patients even though the drug can have its intended clinical impact.
If the researchers can find another, more powerful HDAC inhibitor, it might help with the clinical picture for Alzheimer's disease, but might also mimic the acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (like aricept) already being used.
JM2C,
aj
Genisi, LIFC's xenoderm product, in preparation for release as early as late this year will provide just that. They key to the success of their product is the success of their decellularization process. The "wash" is apparently very gentle to the underlying intracellular matrix, and if it works as well with pig skin as it has with human skin, the product will dominate the market.
Wright med. has already filed suit to block Xenoderm, but it is likely a groundless attempt as the key to the product is the wash.
aj
Geoff, actually the LIFC board on yahoo has been the exception that has defined the rule that yahoo boards suck. For the last 4 years, there have been a core group of investors who have kept up with co. developments. One regular poster even transcribes each CC and adds his interpretations.
The board does occasionally get the wacko and the naked, gibberish minded short, but they tend to disappear after the frenzy of a short runup dissapates. The co. has an all-time high around $32 and will likely head back to that level to base around $32-35 before a bold move into the $40 range and beyond. They have been able to grow top and bottom line about 40% YOY for the last two years and I see no slowing for at least a couple more years.
When they get to a market cap of $2B, I think they'll get taken out.
JM2C
aj
Lifecell (LIFC) is a tissue processing co. specializing in providing surgeons with decellularized collagen intra/intercellular matrix for use in reconstructive surgeries. I have tracked LIFC since 2001, owned since 2003 (or 04) and have recently exited my position in favor of some more speculative positions. In at $4.49, out between $28-30.
LIFC is the leader in this industry, with projected sales as follows, per their guidance earlier this week:
"Full Year 2007 Financial Outlook
For the full-year 2007, the Company anticipates product revenues in the range of $175.0 million to $182.0 million and operating income in the range of $42.5 million to $45.0 million. The product revenue and operating income ranges are unchanged from the previous ranges communicated in January 2007.
Diluted net income per share is expected to be in the range of $0.74 to $0.78 compared to the Company's previous range for diluted net income per share of $0.73 to $0.77. The change is due to a reduction in the estimated effective tax rate for 2007."
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070425/nyw027.html?.v=92
LIFC's flagship product is alloderm, a decellularized human skin product, collected from cadavers and initially processed in tissue banks across the country. LIFC's decellularization process appears to be superior to other co.'s with apparent receptor sites left in the collagen matrix which stimulate host stem cell repopulation. Alloderm is most frequently used in hernia procedures and is quickly replacing mesh products in the complex hernia arena. The alloderm matrix is tough, easy to use (per a surgeon friend of mine who is a big fan) and within several months becomes indistinguishable from host tissue. There are NO rejection issues. The product has been used in 700,000 plus procedures to date without any infection issues (unlike CRY). Recently, alloderm has entered the breast reconstruction market for breast ca survivors. The product is used as a sling in the recon of breast tissue. Adoption of this use has been rapid.
LIFC has been preparing for the release of Xenoderm, a porcine product similar to alloderm, and has announced that they will submit a 510K application in the next quarter or so. I am certain that they have plenty of science behind this and have already stated that surgeon are ready to use this product in the established applications as well as for several important cosmetic applications that are currently "off limits" for alloderm (because of the "frivolous" nature of cosmetic procedures), particularly breast implantation. This could drive sales well above $400 million and drive down overhead, yielding a VERY profitable picture for LIFC in 2008-2009.
I am looking to flip some of my more speculative gains back into LIFC if/when those position bear some fruit. I view LIFC as money in the bank.
Worth a look for the crowd here. Maybe Retiredtechie or Lumpy could give the same overview for Tutogen (TTG) the distant no. two in this space.
regards
aj
Has anyone on this board covered the tissue processing co.s LIFC and TTG? If you have and I missed it, I'll not bore you, but if you haven't, I'll post, particularly on LIFC, as I've tracked, owned and made good money here.
aj
Well, NRMX is on MY short list if your quote from the statisticians is accurate. Given the nearly meaningless data-point changes necessary for statistical significance in Alzheimer's studies (CIBIC, CDR, and/or ADAS scores) and the huge numbers of subjects necessary to generate a powerful enough statistical paradigm, having your statistician tell you that your not going to make it is BAD news for clinical utility for the drug.
aj
Not to throw any cold water on NEU, but their use of a CABG population is a poor choice, given the metrics of cognitive change during and after the acute recovery phase of the surgery. NEU would be much smarter to convince the DOD to sponsor a larger trial with vets and/or one of the many existing populations of ABI patients, or choose another population where big difference(s) can be made, like acute stroke patients.
I've never posted here before, but work as a neuropsychologist in this area and have had a hand in many previous neuroprotection trials for AD and Vascular dementia. Reading NEU's information regarding glypromate was not very impressive to me.
regard
aj
New coverage today. You probably saw the post already but here's the summary From Leerink and Swan:
Boston, MA - September 25, 2006. This morning, Senior Medical Device Analyst, Jason Wittes, initiated coverage of Cambridge Heart, Inc. (OTCBB:CAMH.OB) with an Outperform rating. He believes the company’s HearTwave System is poised for widespread adoption, based on results of a MEDACorp survey, reimbursement progress and recent changes in medical guidelines.
Given they've been in the field surveying cardiologists, this is good news
aj
I'm officially on board. Lumpy, if you get a bonus for bringing a friend over, IH should credit you for about thirty six, which is my last count for our group.
apljack ain't what I drink or eat, it's what I am
aj