clarksm1947@yahoo.comis...(put something here)
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Are they our direct competition? If so, and they are first to market, we could have some problems.
So we just have to wait it out, right? How long do you think it will take? I don't mind another year or even two as long as there is enough money to keep progressing.
Thanks GS. That helps put things into perspective. A one year delay isn't that bad IMO. We should all be able to live with that.
Maybe they will put together a PR that will halt the slide. I think it would help if they said they were definitely going to present at a conference. That would show investors that they are still working to get the word out.
What is your take on all the selling?
Thanks, dog. For some reason I was thinking June. Just nerves, I guess. Some days I think investing in BOCX is like one huge game of "chicken". But I still believe.
Shouldn't they have announced it if they were going to present at the ISOBM?
Do you think yesterday's volume was someone liquidating a large position?
Good volume!
Goldseeker, I hope you will continue to post as a member of this board.
It's good to see that ther hasn't been insider selling of late.
That sounds good to me. Thanks.
Erthang, I am curious as to why you say this. I thought everyone here was concerned with the state of the financial situation. And if it were bad, why wouldn't that affect the share price?
I'm glad you said that, because running out of money is the only thing I am worried about. Everything else will be corrected in due time.
Personally, I think many are afraid that we will run out of money before the show hits the road.
This may not be the be-all, end-all, but I really think we would be taken more seriously if articles were published in some major scientific journals - especially in the oncology field. I know Dr. Moro has hesitated to do that in the past, but maybe someone at BOCX is working on one now if they feel they have enough patent protection.
The info is not new, but the fact that it got picked up by Elsevier is. They are one of the premier publishers of scientific information, both texts and journals. I see this as very positive. (I didn't copy the entire article because we've all seen it already.)
BioCurex announces plans for direct commercialisation of its Elisa Recaf blood tests for cancer.
416 words
12 June 2008
Company Reports
English
(c) 2008 Elsevier Engineering Information www.ei.org
Following the completion of its successful testing on bladder, kidney, stomach and other types of cancer, BioCurex announced that its Elisa technology can now move Biocurex towards early commercialisation of its proprietary Recaf cancer-detection. BioCurex had developed two previous formats of its Recaf blood tests for cancer - the tried-and-true radio-immunoassay (RIA), which was useful to demonstrate proof-of-concept, and chemoluminescence, which is used in many high throughput automated instruments. While each format filled its purpose, neither one allowed BioCurex to directly market its own tests. However, most clinical and research labs use Elisa technology on a daily basis and BioCurex has recently announced the successful development of its Recaf Elisa blood test for cancer.
Thanks, Gyro. Several others have mentioned to me that Vitamin D is being investigated, but I have not yet been able to read anything like this. I'm going to ask my doctor about it. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.
And can anyone make an educated guess as to when IMA might conceivably take RECAF into trials?
I, for one, value your contributions to the board and hope you will continue to post.
Isn't it the PSA test for prostrate cancer? I think we were all hoping they would couple RECAF with that to ease our entry into the commercial world. Like many others, it really bothered me when they didn't - no matter what the reason.
I meant the one that opportunity knocking mentioned about a week ago. I tried to find something on google, but couldn't zero in on their actual presentation.
"Inverness is doing a presentation next Thursday. The CEO and also the director have been doing a ton of insider buying this week. I wish it was because of us, but I'll settle for a mention of our company name at their biotech presentation next week. Obviously, they are upbeat and confident of what they are about to present and expect a rise in their share price."
Does anyone have any information about the IMA presentation at the Needham Conference? There was a live webcast, but I missed it. Did they say anything that might refer to plans for BOCX?
Assuming they get the tests up and running in other countries, won't that increase the pressure to have it adopted here? I imagine insurance companies are great lobbyists. Also, we aren't talking about some kind of dangerous new medical procedure; all they need is a drop of your blood to run the test. Just think of the potential for monitoring cancer treatment if nothing else. Oncologists would be jumping for joy.
I'm glad you could read that in the chart. It's comforting to someone like myself who probably should be more diversified, but who believes so strongly in RECAF that he can't bring himself to sell.
Check this out. It was on google. I apologize if it was posted earlier.
http://www.crystalra.com/pdf/BOCX_EIO_04-11-08.pdf
Zolax has always been blunt, but I hope he is able to get back in at a good price point. I wish everyone serving in our military in Iraq in this war could get a piece of the action.
I had to use mine for new glasses. Wish I could afford to buy more BOCX. The price is right and the future looks good, assuming we don't run out of money.
Ameritrade shows it at .56. Things are looking good.
I think it's important to remember that RECAF tests will probably be relatively inexpensive, at least that's what I've gathered over the years. I'm looking for a type of "mass marketing" in which the test is used for early detection, confirmation of other tests, and monitoring of cancer patients. They are all important; all will save countless lives.
Here are the best parts of the news release (commercialization can't be too far off):
The advantage of the ELISA test format is that it is the most commonly used type of immuno-assay and as such, the majority of clinical and research laboratories have the instrumentation for its use...
With the completion of the RECAF-ELISA blood test, BioCurex can now provide clinical as well as research laboratories with a test that can be easily shipped and used without the proprietary restrictions of automatic instruments. While this RECAF test can operate on some automated instruments, it is designed for standard 96 well ELISA plates and can be carried out in practically any lab worldwide. This should accomplish two important objectives: The first one is to disseminate samples of the RECAF tests among many different laboratories to further evaluate, validate, and expand Biocurex's test results. The second objective is the prompt commercialization of these tests, directly by BioCurex or through its licensees.
I might be looking through rose colored glasses, but I keep thinking of the stock Dr. Moro gave his employees some months ago. Surely he wouldn't have done that if he had thought BOCX might not make it. That would have been really cold! Now we see IMA paying $500,000, and the payments to the hedge fund continuing to be made in cash. Surely these are good signs, good enough to stick it out a while longer at any rate.
Someone sure lucked out:
a) On April 16, 2008, the Company issued 33,333 shares of common stock pursuant to the exercise of 33,333 stock options for proceeds of $33.
b) On April 28, 2008, the Company issued 42,105 shares of common stock pursuant to the exercise of share purchase warrants for proceeds of $8,000, which was included in common stock subscribed as at March 31, 2008.
Who makes the call to begin clinical trials? If it is Dr. Moro, he may have hesitated in the same way he did in getting RECAF articles published. I am just speculating here.
I was just messing around on google, and I found this. There should be no problem getting clinical trials done since Dr. Gold is Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board.
Clinical Research Centre of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
Center Overview
The Clinical Research Centre (CRC) was established by Dr. Phil Gold in 1995 as an infrastructure of the Montreal General Hospital Research Institute to promote clinical trials research within the health care establishment. For over more than five years, the CRC is pursuing its mission to provide educational programs in clinical research, to facilitate the conduct of clinical trials, and to promote the clinical investigator’s portfolio to industry, in order to provide innovative treatments for patients across all sites of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) including The Montreal General Hospital, Royal Victoria Hospital, The Montreal Children’s Hospital, The Montreal Chest Institute and The Montreal Neurological Hospital. With over 400 clinical investigators, The Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre has one of Canada's largest clinical research centres, providing both state-of-the-art health care to its patients and innovative biomedical and clinical research. The McGill University Health Centre is fortunate to have a most productive Research Institute. All of the partner hospitals and the Institute foster close collaboration between basic and clinical scientists, allowing clinical investigators to produce novel research data with major commercial potential and to attract industrial sponsorship in all four phases of clinical trials and other forms of technology transfer. The RI MUHC clinical investigators have a solid reputation and the MUHC Clinical Research Centre provides an infrastructure which assures services to its investigators and a point of contact for industrial sponsors seeking approval for pharmaceutical agents and medical Devices. The Centre has become a major Canadian clearinghouse for interaction between academia and industry and for providing pharma with advice.
I checked the Factivia index today, and articles about the Crystal Research report are appearing in fourteen newsletters, including Drug Week, Biotech Week, Science Letter, Cancer Weekly and Clinical Oncology Week. That's a lot more than the other times. Maybe something is about to happen.
Given the fact that the BOCX test will be relatively cheap, wouldn't it be used as a means of comparison/verification even if other tests were on the market?
Did they give you a decent price? The problem many of us have is that we bought on the way up so many years ago, and then there was no way to recoup after BOCX went on the pink sheets.
Some interesting early history on Biosite; note the European expansion (very bottom). Could the recent EPO decision come into play here?
http://www.answers.com/topic/biosite-incorporated?cat=biz-fin
Company History: Biosite Incorporated
Company Perspectives:
"Novel" is a term we apply to the proprietary protein markers that form the basis of our unique diagnostic products. It's a description that can also be applied to the breadth and depth of scientific expertise that resides within Biosite Discovery, one of Biosite's research and development arms. Our team of multi-talented scientists provides us with the knowledge base to accelerate advancements in these varied disciplines. The overarching goal is to create a productive pipeline of cost-effective, easy-to-use diagnostic technologies that deliver accurate, reliable results with unusual speed.
Key Dates:
1988: Biosite is incorporated.
1992: Biosite's first product, the Triage Drugs of Abuse Panel, is introduced.
1997: Biosite completes its initial public offering of stock.
1999: The Triage Cardiac System is introduced.
2000: The Triage BNP Test is launched.
2003: Sales and distribution subsidiaries are established in France and Germany.
2005: Biosite files for pre-market approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its Triage Stroke Panel.
Incorporated: 1988 as Biosite Diagnostics Incorporated
NAIC: 325413 In-Vitro Diagnostic Substance Manufacturing; 339112 Surgical and Medical Instrument Manufacturing; 334516 Analytical Laboratory Instrument Manufacturing
Biosite Incorporated develops diagnostic products that use human biomarkers of disease to determine what is afflicting a patient. Biosite's devices provide rapid diagnoses at the point of care, eliminating the use of laboratory-based analyzers, which take longer and cost more to provide test results. The company offers diagnostic products for drug screening, heart attack, congestive heart failure, acute coronary syndromes, and for the evaluation of shortness of breath and certain bacterial and parasitic infections. Biosite's products are developed through an internal research program named Biosite Discovery. The company's products are sold in the United States and in Europe.
Biosite sprang from discontent, created by a trio of executives and scientists as a way of improving their professional lives. During the early 1980s, Kim Blickenstaff, Kenneth Buechler, and Gunars Valkirs enjoyed the success of developing an innovative product that became the financial backbone for their employer, Hybritech Incorporated, one of the first biotechnology companies based in San Diego. Of the three, Blickenstaff was the business executive, a certified public accountant with a master's degree in business from Loyola University who was versed in finance, marketing management, sales, and strategic planning. Buechler and Valkirs were scientists, holding doctorate degrees in biochemistry and physics, respectively.
At Hybritech, within the company's diagnostics research and development group, the trio's pioneering work took shape. In a project headed by Blickenstaff, experimental work began on the development of a color-change-membrane pregnancy test, a test capable of determining pregnancy in the doctor's office, which eliminated the need to wait for results from a lab. Valkirs, who was credited as the inventor, developed the ICON hcG test, the first rapid, visual pregnancy test that was the precursor to over-the-counter pregnancy kits used by women in their homes. The test proved to be a market winner, becoming the primary source of revenue for Hybritech, generating $30 million in sales within three years. For Blickenstaff, Buechler, and Valkirs, the joy of bringing a revolutionary product to market and watching its success did not last long. In a way, their success became their own undoing, sowing the seeds of discontent that gave birth to Biosite.
The point-of-care, visual pregnancy test drew national attention to the small, biotechnology company based in San Diego. Eli Lilly and Company, the giant pharmaceutical company based in Indianapolis, took more than a casual interest in Hybritech, paying $300 million in 1986 to gain control of ICON hcG and the rest of Hybritech. The pleasure of being part of a successful start-up soon faded, as Blickenstaff later explained in an August 27, 2001 interview with the San Diego Business Journal. "After the company was acquired by Eli Lilly," he said, "we were really disenchanted with the change in culture from a stand-alone start-up environment to something that was much more structured and drug-company oriented." Blickenstaff, Buechler, and Valkirs were not the only Hybritech employees to chaff at the change in ownership: an exodus of talent began, including the trio's superiors, Timothy Wollaeger and Howard Greene, Jr., who left to start their own venture capital firm, Biovest Partners.
Biosite's founders decided to start their own company and return to the happier days of working for a start-up. In 1988, Blickenstaff wrote a business plan based on what he referred to as his "cute little product" in his interview with the San Diego Business Journal. The initial idea was to develop another color-change diagnostic kit, one that could test for illicit drug use and aid doctors in emergency rooms trying to identify which drug a patient had overdosed. For the money to start the company, Blickenstaff approached his former bosses, Wollaeger and Greene, who agreed to give Blickenstaff $600,000 to start his company, which was incorporated as Biosite Diagnostics Incorporated in March 1988. The seed money gave Blickenstaff, joined by Buechler and Valkirs, enough money to begin development work on the company's first diagnostic kit, work that was performed in Biosite's first headquarters, a 400-square-foot office. Each of the founders applied their particular skills to Biosite's first project, enjoying the freedom of working within a small company. "Gunars believed what I told him about marketing," Blickenstaff said of Valkirs in an October 23, 2003 interview with Forbes, "and I believed what he told me about the technology."
The freedom of running their own company soon gave way to a less attractive aspect of operating a start-up: finding the capital to keep the company alive. Within a year of starting out, the Blickenstaff-led company was in desperate need of cash, having quickly exhausted the $600,000 obtained from Biovest Partners. Blickenstaff, in his realm as the business executive among scientists, devoted his efforts to finding the financial support to keep the company's research and development efforts moving forward. He arranged meetings with more than 40 venture capitalists, pitching the prospects of a point-of-care drug-abuse diagnostic device, but his efforts were undermined when one of the venture capitalists he met with began spreading the word that there was no market need for a faster, cheaper test for illicit drug use. Blickenstaff was running out of time and options, prompting him to make a last-ditch appeal to Frederick Dotzler, a partner at Medicus Venture Partners. Dotzler was not convinced by the skeptical venture capitalist, but neither was he convinced by Blickenstaff's enthusiasm. With nowhere else to turn, Blickenstaff paid for a market research study, using the company's last $35,000 and borrowing another $35,000 to pay for evidence that could refute the assessment of the company's vocal critic and build confidence in Biosite's cause. "If we were wrong," Blickenstaff said in an October 23, 2003 interview with Forbes, referring to the market research, "the company was dead."
According to Forbes, the venture capitalist who had derided Biosite had based his marketability assessment on conversations with toxicologists, rather than emergency-room (ER) doctors--the people who would use Biosite's proposed device. When ER doctors and pathologists were asked in the market-research study if they would probably or definitely purchase the test, 75 percent responded in the affirmative, providing enough evidence for Dotzler to throw himself behind Biosite's cause. He raised $3.5 million from a group of investors to fund research and development work on the drug abuse device, enabling Biosite, which used the research data to aid in pricing and marketing the device, to introduce the Triage Drugs of Abuse Panel into the U.S. market in February 1992. The credit-card-sized device, using a urine sample, was able to determine which of seven drugs a patient had misused within ten minutes for $25 a test. Technology at the time relied on large analyzers the size of a mainframe computer that were kept in the central laboratories of hospitals and designed to conduct hundreds of blood tests at a time, requiring considerable time for hospital personnel to log and to load the blood samples. Biosite's device delivered the same results for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. Within 18 months of the release of its testing device, Biosite celebrated its first profit, encouraging Blickenstaff, Buechler, and Valkirs to develop additional point-of-care products.
Biosite altered its strategic focus in the wake of its initial success, but the basis of the company's technology already was established with the Triage console. In the future, the company's products would use the same basic Triage device, which sold for between $3,000 and $4,500, but they would use different, disposable cartridges to identify human biomarkers of disease, identifying certain concentrations of what were called analytes--proteins, peptides, enzymes, hormones, and other blood-borne molecules found in normal and diseased physiology. The change in strategy, begun as the company entered the mid-1990s, was the focus on diagnosing heart disease, a choice made because of the changing dynamics in the healthcare industry. "Rapid diagnosis wasn't important 20 years ago," Blickenstaff said in his August 27, 2001 interview with the San Diego Business Journal, "but with insurers and providers draining costs out of the systems, everybody is interested in diagnosing quicker."
The focus on a new market put Biosite in the red again. Research and development investments were made in designing a blood test for diagnosing a heart attack, chewing through the profits generated by the company's drug-abuse test. As work was underway on a product to detect a heart attack from a blocked coronary, the company turned to Wall Street for aid in funding its research and development efforts. Biosite completed its initial public offering of stock in February 1997, when the company's stock debuted at $12 per share on the NASDAQ National Market, raising $30 million. Roughly eight months after its conversion to public ownership, Biosite received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to market its Triage Cardiac System for diagnosing heart attack, but Blickenstaff and his team barely had the opportunity to celebrate the achievement. Biosite was beset by manufacturing problems with its newest device: Half of all the disposable test devices were rejected on the assembly line, severely delaying the introduction of the Triage Cardiac System into the market. While Blickenstaff revamped the company's manufacturing operations, Biosite received FDA approval in 1998 to market two diagnostic kits, the Triage C. difficile Panel and the Triage Parasite Panel, developed to identify bacteria and intestinal parasitic disease, respectively. The new devices did little to offset the damage caused by problems with manufacturing the Triage Cardiac System, however. Biosite fell short of its earnings and revenues projections twice, a failure that whittled its share price down to $4.50 by October 1998.
The waiting was over in February 1999, when the Triage Cardiac System was released in the United States. The $3,000 system, which consisted of a main console and a one-time $25 cartridge, enabled doctors to monitor three heart proteins that were released into the bloodstream at higher levels during a heart attack. The system, introduced in Europe in November 1999, was the first of several products developed to diagnose heart disease, followed by the Triage BNP Test, which received FDA clearance in November 2000. Development of the device, which measured levels of B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), was begun five years earlier at a time when there was no clear association between heart failure and BNP, and its novelty proved to be a hindrance to its market success. Biosite was unable to convince the medical community that Triage BNP worked, leading to a period of frustration that did not end until the March 2002 meeting of the American College of Cardiology. At the meeting, results of a clinical study were released, revealing that measuring levels of BNP represented the single most accurate indicator of congestive heart failure. Soon afterward, the company's 15-minute, $20 blood test was adopted for use in 1,000 hospitals. By the end of 2002, Biosite had sold $38 million worth of the kits.
By the time the Triage BNP began to stir excitement within the medical community, Biosite had a decade of new product introductions under its belt. The revenue growth between 1992 and 2002 described a company fast on the rise, with each of its innovative, cost-effective devices delivering surges of financial growth. Biosite was a $2.2 million company in 1992, a $28.2 million company in 1995, and a $51.6 million company in 2000 before eclipsing the $100 million mark in 2002. During the ensuing two years, the company's annual revenue total would more than double as sales of its existing devices matured and new devices were introduced. Biosite, which had struggled for years after its founding, entered the mid-2000s as a company planning to be a $1 billion-in-sales diagnostics company. Such confidence was drawn from its rapid growth, the pace of which surprised even Biosite's most ardent supporters. "Our growth is shocking to us," Blickenstaff said in a May 18, 2005 interview with Investor's Business Daily. During the previous five years, Biosite had recorded annual revenue growth of 46 percent, far outpacing the 6 percent annual revenue growth of the diagnostics industry.
As Biosite planned for its future, there was every expectation that the years ahead would witness the continued rise of the company. The establishment of overseas operations promised to boost foreign sales, deepening Biosite's presence in large medical markets. In mid-2003, the company organized Biosite France SAS to manage direct sales and distribution in France, tasks that also were assigned to a new German subsidiary, Biosite GmbH, formed in November 2003. Further European expansion followed in January 2004, when offices were opened in the United Kingdom and Belgium. On the new product front, high expectations were pinned on the company's kit for diagnosing stroke. Development of the Triage Stroke Panel began in 2001 when the company's stroke marker discovery program yielded an initial panel of markers capable of detecting stroke. In early 2005, the pre-market approval application for the Triage Stroke Panel was under review by the FDA.
Principal Subsidiaries
Biosite GmbH (Germany); Biosite France S.A.S.; Biosite Ltd. (U.K.); Biosite BVBA (Belgium); Biosite S.r.l. (Italy).
Principal Competitors
Avitar, Inc.; Dade Behring Holdings Inc.; Roche Holding Ltd.
Further Reading
"Biosite Announces FDA Clearance to Market Triage TOX Drug Screens," Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, March 2, 2005, p. 32.
"Biosite Inc.," San Diego Business Journal, April 4, 2005, p. 39.
Dolan, Kerry A., "Good Genes," Forbes, May 16, 2005, p. 106.
Kroll, Luisa, "Vital Signs," Forbes, October 27, 2003, p. 150.
Lau, Gloria, "From One Idea, Years of Success," Investor's Business Daily, August 30, 2004, p. A12.
Reeves, Amy, "Biosite Inc. San Diego, California; Shift in Thinking Gives Test Maker a Boost," Investor's Business Daily, September 30, 2002, p. A10.
Somers, Terri, "Biosite Heart Attack Meter Puts Lifesaving Speed in ER," San Diego Union-Tribune, February 11, 2005, p. B2.
— Jeffrey L. Covell
Does anyone think it odd that the Crystal Research report made the news on the same day as this filing? We were talking about the CR report back on April 11. One would think that it would make the news back then. I was just thinking that maybe BOCX was trying to balance a (possibly) perceived negative filing with a positive report, but maybe I'm reading too much into it.