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Bman - why would you want to own more of this company? The vaunted lateral drilling solution is DOA, the satellite biz is off 50%. What are you hoping for?
FDA’s Psychiatric Division has Rejected Cortex’s Request to Study CX717 in Phase IIb ADHD Study
Why?
Scientists back brain drugs for healthy people
[Too bad Barry Bonds' health (mental) is questionable...)
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_11162279?IADID
By MALCOLM RITTER AP Science Writer
Posted: 12/07/2008 10:29:07 AM PST
NEW YORK—Healthy people should have the right to boost their brains with pills, like those prescribed for hyperactive kids or memory-impaired older folks, several scientists contend in a provocative commentary.
College students are already illegally taking prescription stimulants like Ritalin to help them study, and demand for such drugs is likely to grow elsewhere, they say.
"We should welcome new methods of improving our brain function," and doing it with pills is no more morally objectionable than eating right or getting a good night's sleep, these experts wrote in an opinion piece published online Sunday by the journal Nature.
The commentary calls for more research and a variety of steps for managing the risks.
As more effective brain-boosting pills are developed, demand for them is likely to grow among middle-aged people who want youthful memory powers and multitasking workers who need to keep track of multiple demands, said one commentary author, brain scientist Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania.
"Almost everybody is going to want to use it," Farah said.
"I would be the first in line if safe and effective drugs were developed that trumped caffeine," another author, Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, declared in an e-mail.
The seven authors, from the United States and Britain, include ethics experts and the editor-in-chief of Nature as well as scientists. They developed their case at a seminar funded by Nature and Rockefeller University in New York. Two authors said they consult for pharmaceutical companies; Farah said she had no such financial ties. Some health experts agreed that the issue deserves attention. But the commentary didn't impress Leigh Turner of the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics.
"It's a nice puff piece for selling medications for people who don't have an illness of any kind," Turner said.
The commentary cites a 2001 survey of about 11,000 American college students that found 4 percent had used prescription stimulants illegally in the prior year. But at some colleges, the figure was as high as 25 percent.
"It's a felony, but it's being done," Farah said.
The stimulants Adderall and Ritalin are prescribed mainly for people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but they can help other people focus their attention and handle information in their heads, the commentary says.
Another drug called Provigil is approved for sleep disorders but is also prescribed for healthy people who need to stay alert when sleep-deprived, the commentary says. Lab studies show it can also perk up the brains of well-rested people. And some drugs developed for Alzheimer's disease also provide a modest memory boost, it says.
Ritalin is made by Switzerland-based Novartis AG, but the drug is also available generically. Adderall is made by U.K.-based Shire PLC and Montvale, N.J.-based Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., and some formulations are also available generically. Provigil is made by Cephalon Inc. of Frazer, Pa.
While supporting the concept that healthy adults should be able to use brain-boosting drugs, the authors called for:
— More research into the use, benefits and risks of such drugs. Much is unknown about the current medications, such as the risk of dependency when used for this purpose, the commentary said. Also, according to the Food and Drug Administration, Adderall, for example, is an amphetamine that carries warnings about possible sudden death, heart attack and stroke, especially for people with heart problems.
— Policies to guard against people being coerced into taking them.
— Steps to keep the benefits from making socio-economic inequalities worse.
— Action by doctors, educators and others to develop policies on the use of such drugs by healthy people.
— Legislative action to allow drug companies to market the drugs to healthy people if they meet regulatory standards for safety and effectiveness.
Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said she agreed with the commentary that the nonprescribed use of brain-boosting drugs must be studied.
But she said she was concerned that wider use of stimulants could lead more people to become addicted to them. That's what happened decades ago when they were widely prescribed for a variety of disorders, she said.
"Whether we like it or not, that property of stimulants is not going to go away," she said.
Erik Parens, a senior research scholar at the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y., said the commentary makes a convincing case that "we ought to be opening this up for public scrutiny and public conversation."
One challenge will be finding ways to protect people against subtle coercion to use the drugs, the kind of thing parents feel when neighbor kids sign up for SAT prep courses, he said.
And if the nation moves to providing a basic package of health care to all its citizens, it's hard to see how it could afford to include brain-boosting drugs, he said. If they have to be bought separately, it raises the question about promoting societal inequalities, he said.
Dealmaking in Bigpharma
Fluffy, but perspectives interesting... accurate story? Can't prove it here.
http://www.genengnews.com/articles/chitem.aspx?aid=2634
Roundtable Discussion
What's Driving Dealmaking in Biopharma?
Licensing and Business Development Experts Share Their Insights on M&A and Partnering
In the GENWall Street Biobeat column of the September 1 issue of GEN, Robert Dellenbach wrote that significant changes in the global economy and venture capital activity have dramatically impacted the life sciences industry. Moreover, his article appeared even before last month’s near Wall Street meltdown. What’s a biotech company to do for money?
GEN recently held a roundtable discussion with several industry professionals to find out. We discovered that dealmaking with pharma firms was on a dramatic upswing, and not just due to a lack of VC funding. The entire roundtable event was recorded and can be heard by going to: Roundtable Discussion on Biotech/Pharma Deals.
GEN’s Editor in Chief, John Sterling, served as the host for the roundtable discussion. The participants included Martina Molsbergen, vp of business development at Crucell; Barbara Yanni, chief licensing officer at Merck & Co.; David Colpman, svp of business development at Shire Pharmaceuticals; and Joern-Peter Halle, head, early-stage licensing at Merck Serono, a division of Merck KGaA. All four participants will be featured delegates at the upcoming BIO-Europe 2008 partnering conference to be held November 17–19 in Mannheim/Heidelberg, Germany.
Biopharmaceutical industry deals are growing at an ever-increasing rate. What’s driving these developments, especially all the M&A and partnering activities between pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms?
Molsbergen: Our main reason for partnering our technology is to maximize the value of our asset. Deals create value and drive our valuations. For our product pipelines, outlicensing is not necessarily a first option. But sometimes it becomes necessary for a biotech company to partner an asset. The company may be seeking funding for its other programs, or may not have the wherewithal or be able to raise money and build infrastructure to bring forward a drug candidate. It becomes a question of risk.
So we outlicense, even though it is not our first option. With the investment market being more risk averse and investment interest slowing down at the moment, profitability and shorter term payouts are essential. So outlicensing of drug candidates in a biotech pipeline is essential for cash. And unfortunately it’s a rough climate to raise money. It is difficult to find conventional financing, especially for startup companies right now.
Big pharmas are buying biotech companies because of product assets, not usually for technologies unless the technologies are novel and unique. It is a competitive environment in the pharma industry and a time of risk aversion. Big pharma’s hunger for later-stage products has not changed. And its need to feed its pipelines grows ever more. It is a poor investment climate for biotech companies. Biotech stocks have been punished this past year. With the investment market being risk averse to biotech, acquisitions seem perfectly in line at the moment to shareholders of biotech companies.
Yanni: There’s a very competitive atmosphere in the pharmaceutical industry and in the biotech industry as well. Our interest is in bringing forth novel products and working with the best science that we can. That’s why we are interested in doing deals with biotech and other companies outside of Merck. We can’t do all the biomedical research in the world so it is extremely important for us to reach out to companies wherever there are significant scientific advances being made.
Colpman: Shire conducts very little drug discovery so we’ve always been interested in deals. We are a $3 billion company now, and we’re looking for more deals to keep our growth going.
Another deal driver is the fact that pharma companies are still competing with each other to do biotech deals regardless of the funding climate and the market caps of some struggling biotech companies. I point to our recent acquisition of Jerini as an example. When we started looking at Jerini, its stock price was less than €2 a share and we ended up paying over €6 per share for the company. This reflected competition from a number of pharma companies that were also looking at Jerini. Essentially, Shire saw more synergies and value than the others.
Halle: At Merck Serono, the product comes first and then the deal. We ask “does a product we are interested in fit into our pipeline? Does it bring us forward?” If all those questions are answered with “yes”, and there are other interesting assets in the company, we most likely will consider an acquisition rather than in-license a specific single-asset product.
So the driver for us is the product. And, of course, we have a strategy that was established after the integration of Merck KGaA and Serono. This strategy dictates our ambitions and the dealmaking.
Kilkenney Capital Management’s analyst Vincent Aita notes that he chooses biotech stocks based on their likelihood of being taken over. What does a biotech firm need to do to get the attention of large pharma?
Halle: If the biotech company has an attractive product, and if there is competition between pharma companies to get access to that compound, a pharma company will consider acquiring a company to secure that asset. For example, if a biotech company’s product is within our strategic focus, we might invest a lot of money upfront to acquire the company rather than enter into a standard licensing deal.
Colpman: I agree with the earlier comment that you put the product at the center of consideration and the deal comes after, whether it’s M&A or licensing. To raise its profile, a biotech company needs to publish good journal articles. It also must show that it has a good product and great data and then target as many places, people, and companies, as it can. You just need to get the information out there and make as much noise as possible.
Molsbergen: When putting together a portfolio, ensure that your IP is solid. Big pharmas are still licensing based on the target mechanism of action for that target: the IP frontier, meaning the freedom to operate and exclusivity, how big is the market prediction, the competitive landscape for the indications, and evidence of activity in vivo for the drug candidate.
When outlicensing products it’s essential for your drug’s ability to create value in the future around that portfolio. If it’s not tangible, if it’s not something that is recognizable by future partners, or something better than what they already have in development, then I would say that your chances for getting attention are going to be a lot less. This is evidenced by some drugs that are in Phase III and not partnered out, mostly because no one wants to assume the risk.
Yanni: We have a different point of view. We want to make ourselves as available as possible. And so, in that regard, we have developed a simple point of entry to the outside world and we’ve worked hard internally at Merck to make the review process as seamless as possible.
We don’t want the person to have to figure out how this works at Merck in order to get the opportunity reviewed by the right people. So as long as somebody gets that package to a member of our licensing team, we will get it to the right experts and have them review it.
The most important thing to us is the scientific data and the IP, as Martina said, because we have these packages reviewed by the experts in the field. So they’re looking at it from the standpoint of scientists. Of course, for later-stage opportunities, we also involve marketing folks. We want to make it as simple as possible and as quick as possible so we can get back to people with a yes or no answer or even “no for now but we’d like to see more data when it becomes available.
Busy guy that Dr. Morenstein who directed the Kefir study... he is also the principal investigator for a Gerber sponsored Potential of Priobiotics in Yogurt (SIPPY) study which is scheduled to run until August
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00492583?term=NCT00492583&rank=1
Why isn't it obvious that the R&R's apparently mindless $.30, et.al., was an emotional rift having to do with Stoll? Coincidence that shortly after a new Pres/CEO R&R the tout is back?
Well, $.05 did beat estimates...
but leaves LWAY a long way to a reasonable PE.
The question is, what part of the 23% sales increase came from the price increases? Q2 could be impressively beyond the current $.06 estimate.
NBC5 News Video w/brief shots of Starfruit store
Ms. Smolyanski is also featured in this mixed bag report on probiotics in general, done by a Chicago station.
http://video.nbc5.com/player/?id=245782
Interesting Q1 CC with Dean Foods
in which they confirm the low price elasticity in the milk-stuff segment - hope the "kids" are listening. As I had written earlier, they also believe that the commodity price "thing" is an industry changing event, with global demand outstripping supply for a long, long time.
http://tinyurl.com/3kennt
That said, if LWAY can focus on their core brands, even if they simply maintain margins, revenue growth from price increases (which will be ubiquitous in the food industry) could well maintain the curve.
New Taglich report - $13.75 target
Despite the incestuousness, some interesting comments regarding the dairy outlook and Taglich is generally reasonable (51 p/e fwd) in projections.
http://www.taglichbrothers.com/equityuniverse/companies/lifewayfoods/lifewayfoods-04142008.pdf
Fizzy, gfp? I thot you had some medical awareness... fizzy dairy products - perhaps you're on to something. Yuk.
To settle that spazy GI, what you need is a
GfP, agree that the CC felt like an exercise by a sophomore marketing class... but, having attended early Google meetings, clearly lack of sophistication is not an infallible indicator.
Analyzing Lifeway's potential involves considering the many complexities we are facing. For example, as belief of a global food shortage grows, markets of all sorts may respond calamitously. We can also factor that recession and inflation are back in the public lexicon (and the pres. campaigns will hammer the issues).
So, at a minimum, the LWAY story seems to revolve around demographics... my guess is that neither "R" nor "I" will impact much on the "LWAY". My hope is that the "kids" here understand kefir price elasticity... point is that its possible that margins can be improved even if revenues hold.
As to your GI response... as we know, variable individual responses are the bane of research - perhaps you're just not a probiotic kinda guy... or perhaps causality confirmation requires an expanded sample size beyond 1?
Do you truly believe your multiple bacteria / shelf life hypothesis?
Cramer & LWAY Kefir..
What'd he say? "....sour"?
Cramer makes an entertaining if not compelling case for WBD... got balls?
Today PE only 64... but forward PE = 24
Come on, GFP, give a break here...
Think ahead, gfp....
Albeit, the CC belies management's maturity, the fact is they have gotten this far... and the new products, by large, are interesting, inexpensive twists on the basic theme - what your gradener doesn't have organic kefir with carnitas?
IF COGs remain at/near current levels, one must be thinking the kind of margins & net before the surge (milk surge, I mean).
Pretty good analysis on the Yahoo Board...
Lillian, you'll have to explain what "not a great organic topline grower" means.
They said Helios only grew 5% for the qtr & Lifeway Kefir growing 30% - or am I confusing financial terms with organic growing practices {:>)?
Looks like they both were suggesting the possibility of a $52M 2009, organic or conventional, that's growth of 34%.
Even though the 55+ P/E is big compared to the industry avg of 41, generally I have found a PE close to growth rate to be value investor acceptable. So,stay with me on this...
If LWAY hits $52M next year AND returns to the forecast earlier 18% pretax net, this should provide somewhere near $.35 / shr or a forward P/E of just about 30.
So an industry matching 40 P/E gives us a possible $14... not a slam dunk, but the chances for some additional premium for Starfruit & ProBugs & the other new "stuff" seem to make at least less expensive that you suggest.
Whadya think?
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_L/threadview?m=te&bn=10983&tid=10629&mid=10629&tof=6&frt=2#10629
Trader Joe's now has Kefir.... I hadn't seen it available there before. Is it new? It is private labeled; any idea who might be producing it for them?
On the other hand,
from a promo for a $5K report on Probiotics from UBIC Consulting
http://www.ubic-consulting.com/template/fs/The%20World%20Probiotic_synbiotic%20Ingredient%20Market.pdf
Competitive Risk seems to be one the negatives mentioned often by critics of Lifeway, citing the apparently iffy relationship with Danone and the relatively low barriers to entry. Any thoughts about what the following may mean in that regard:?
"Danone enters Indian market sans Wadias
20 Dec 2007, 0021 hrs IST,TNN
SMS NEWS to 58888 for latest updates
NEW DELHI: French dairy giant Group Danone kicked off its joint venture with Yakult of Japan to manufacture probiotic drinks in the country.
The venture also marks the entry of Danone in the country, outside the tie-up it has with the Wadias for confectionery major, Britannia."
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Danone_enters_Indian_market/articleshow/2635834.cms
Milk prices are headed...
http://www.agriview.com/articles/2007/11/30/dairy_news/dairy01.txt
and this means....
Managing expectations
is one of the most important & difficult
jobs for any CEO.
Ms. Smolansky has clearly not done a good job at this.
Perhaps she has learned something here? Or have we?
BTW, when IS the earnings conference call?
After shedding 1/3 of its market cap and no company communications, smells more rotten than cultured, don't you think?
Stoll assured his confidence in getting a ampakine past Psychiatry because of ORG24448 -- I am unable to find why none of the Organon trials are active; the Schizophrenia and one of the Depression trials were terminated, the remaining trial unopened to participants?
Okay __6, you've read the how to counterattack manual, section (1)Attack'em personally. "I've read your total 38 post history." (Got some spare time, eh?); section (ii)depict questioning or negative views as "Troublemaking"
Tell us, then, why there are no revenues projected from downhole operations in the BK plan?
BTW, the DOE activity started after the juice was put to the tremendous potential AFJ story. For quite some time, all of the posts on this board detailed the minute progress that was being made by the experimental rig and the promise that it held. BLAST was AFJ with nothing mentioned for months on end about the satellite biz.
We haven't seen one post here about the Plan besides mine... lots of other talk, like GOLDEN CROSSES (LOL), but nothing of any substance... I post some views that look past the patina you attempt to paint and get "the treatment."
So who else has read "the Plan, the BOUND Plan" and what do you think?
__6 - you can do better than that.
The projected revenues in the BK plan for the AFJ are what?
The deailed plan for the development and deployment of the AFJ are what?
Recall, about a year ago the AFJ was just a few tweaks away from widespread commercial introduction; now a possible niche market is mentioned - along with a tanker load of caveats and risks. As stated earlier, there clearly is no expectation of AFJ being a contributing profit center -
Sometimes, __6, you gotta read between the lines, too.
AFJ - R.I.P.
So BESV will now be blasting out a new niche for itself... the Digital Oilfield. But the reason we all gathered here was the AFJ - and that appears to be DOA.
And this riverboat gambling management team fails to inspire much confidence that they will float a new project when they have killed high potential projects like the drilling and sucked the life out of the once profitable satellite biz.
AmpMan..
<...despite spending millions, and using FDA expert consultants, got slam dunked on an IND!>
Surely Stoll was convinced of positive FDA response - how else could he have completed that pipe just before the rejection?
<WE have not achieved very much in the last three years, except for extreme dilution>
Well... haven't we certainly gained a much better understanding of the tremendous potential of Ampakines?
>...Stoll is in way over his head. He is overmatched and undercapable.>
Gee, I dunno... look at the network of pipes he has concluded and look where the SP is and notice that he is still CEO... yeah?
<For the first time in 10 years, I see total futility with COR. Bad luck, little money, some stupidity, poor management, FDA stubborness...all are leaning against us.>
Is that like blood running in the streets?
You failed to critisize Stoll for no CC - and rightly so; if he had anything to say he would say it.
Gollee...
Ain't ya'all never heeard of a woudjatake?
Shucks, yo'all need tuh get out'n dance more often...
'course, if'n the music was play'n the right tune, Roger woud'nta never stepped inta thet there closet with them wild RR boys, now woud'e?
Dannon producing Kefir products?
Dalto would have to resign his seat... but there's been such a long term relationship that competition would come from several others... AND then we might see your buyout scenario develop
Got somebody's attention
http://www.insidegreentech.com/node/1272
Too bad they didn't put SOLAR in the heading or main body of this release. News sniffers would be looking for that. My guess is that this accounts for the lackluster post announcement stock performance?
Also curious is that they didn't mention the Univ. of Illinois... wonder what that is about. It appears successful research work is being done... perhaps using the funding from the PP?
Nice find, chase_RR.
Octillion should be a beneficiary of expanded campus & media attention to the schools activity in this field.
1. Let us know your success in finding ANY information regardin the process...
2. Take a google gander at OCTL president Mr. Harmel S. Rayat; and, while you're at it, his predecessor Ms. Terri DuMoulin
3. Then, reiddle me this... how does a company's stock have a $1+ market value when it has just completed a PP, giving 1M shares at $.50/share and laying away another 3M $.50 warrants?
4. Oh, as further confirmation of the SLAM-DUNK of the PV and other technologies, it is so easy that "Because Mr. Rayat will continue to engage in other activities, he will not be devoting his full-time and efforts to our business affairs. "
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/070314/octl.pk8-k.html
What stock wouldn't move with the appointment of a part time CEO... guess one doesn't need to follow OCTL too closely... its own auto-pilot...
Did Terri & Harmi have a spat or just changing costumes again?
So Chase, what raises your suspicions of news next week? The only message I can see is that OCTL is gettin close to a double (price & volume) inverted 5 bagger???
The "alleged" technology is damn exciting, but the market seems to be telling, shouting to, anyone listening that there is nothing more to OCTL than headlines and fading hope.
Chase, can you show us the beef?
Bman... perhaps you need new glasses???
I'm really curious.
Blast, through statements and action, has clearly communicated that the lateral drilling "technology" (which was the compelling trick for this pony) development has encountered some real problems, if not a DOA notice.
Then there is the dilling rigs acquisition, done in a most incredulous manner, for a "nominal" $50 million and stock all done by a firm with no financial assets...
Now, there has not been a communication from Blast in over 2 months, nothing regarding the decimation of the stock price.
And, you are "stacking" additional shares.
Bman, do you have a "gut" feeling? Do you know someone who knows something not generally known? Do you regularly do time travel, such that currently is the past? Without hope, there is no life... but.... as I opened, I'm really curious?
BMan, your optimism is appreciated, but....
What have you seen that makes you believe that anything good is going to happen here? The "Company"'s silence is probably a fear based response to impending shareholder lawsuits... if there were a legitimate "glimmer", you would be hearing it. Unless, of course, you beleive that they are being purposefully silent in order to keep the stock price down so that they can accumulate shares before blasting (yuk,yuk) an explosive announcement.... don't you think?
BK? BESV may have seen the last good news...
Anything anybody learned here about investing? This is a serious inquiry... like what were the red flags that this was coming? What happens when a company does a mission swerve? Any chance to sue the bastards?
Form 8-K for BLAST ENERGY SERVICES, INC.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8-Jan-2007 Other Events
Item 8.01 Other Events.
As an update to our prior disclosure on Form 8-K filed on Friday, January 5, 2007, we have received written notice from our senior lender of various events of default under the loan agreements and related agreements with the senior lender. The senior lender notified us that it intends to charge any and all default amounts under the loan documents as a result of the events of default.
As previously disclosed, due to the inability of Blast to obtain full utilization of its rigs and due to a slowdown in market conditions, Blast has suspended interest payments on its senior debt, in order to conserve cash. At the current contractual interest rate, the monthly interest payment on the senior debt is approximately $370,000. Blast did not pay the interest on its due date. Following a three-day grace period that expires at the end of business on January 5, 2007, the terms of the senior debt provide that there is an event of default. Under the terms of the senior debt, following an event of default, additional interest accrues on the unpaid principal balance at the rate of 1% per month. In addition, an event of default would allow the senior lender to pursue remedies under the loan documents, which include accelerating the indebtedness, charging default interest, and entering foreclosure proceedings on the loan collateral.
Blast is presently in discussions with the senior lender to obtain a waiver, forbearance, or other accommodation relating to the event of default. It is uncertain at this time whether discussions with the senior lender will be successful, or if successful, whether the terms will be favorable to Blast. If Blast is not successful in obtaining a waiver, forbearance or other accommodation on acceptable terms, Blast may be forced to seek creditor protection under applicable bankruptcy laws or seek other accommodations from the senior lender.
Well, so much for the tax selling pressure...
What could it be.... hmmmm?????
Additional Rigs - Schedule?
Evidently there are problems in getting the additional rigs completed? Blast seems to have become quite selective in the information provided to "public" shareholders....
"Blast is actively marketing its drilling rigs and has three rigs ready to contract today. Management expects at this time that the three additional rigs under construction will be ready for delivery during the upcoming months of October, November and early 2007, respectively. "