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It's a credibility issue. I'm not allowed to say more (and I don't mean not allowed by sources)
I presume you overlooked my recent post, so one more time:
Ebolacide has not even been tested in cell culture yet, much less small animals, much much less large animals, vastly less NHPs and in humans ( clinical trials) is not even on the distant horizon!
There are FOUR Ebola vaccines in Phase I's (two of which will start Phase II's this month, THREE more that have completed studies in NHPs and a few more in the earlier pre clinicals. ALL of which are ahead of NNVC and Four of which are at least five steps ahead of NNVC.
http://www.biopharma-reporter.com/Bio-Developments/Ebola-which-are-the-leading-vaccine-candidates
So if you say "there are no vaccines" just where does that leave Ebolacide?
Given where the vaccine candidates are and were Ebolacide is (totally out of sight behind back over the horizon) pointing out that "there is no Ebola vaccine" is less than meaningless.
PS Some of the vaccine candidates have had 100% protection in NHPs.+
PPS vaccines, in stark contrast to drugs, do not require field testing in humans. They can use challenge for efficacy and immunogenicity tests in primates to determine the relationship between immunogenicity and then do immunogenicity in humans and calculate the efficacy in humans. That's good enough for an approval and the resulting Priority Review Voucher.
If there are not enough case to field test (and there almost certainly will not be) by the time Ebolacide is ready (assuming it ever gets that far) Ebolacide will just have to sit on the shelf until the next outbreak, which could be many years. And by another outbreak there will almost inevitably be a stockpile of an effective vaccine on hand to deal with it.
Also note that NVAX has demonstrated in RSV trials (multiple successful Phase II's) the ability to very effective address the hidden protein in RSV which happens to be very similar to a a critical hidden protein in Ebola.
Prophyatic use of drugs is limited by many factors.
A single use of a drug prophylatically may be fairly innocuous, but repeated uses is another question entirely. This is particularly so for nanoviricides in which continuous use would effectively inactive a number of very important cell surface receptors important to immune functions.
Most antibiotics are approved for single use for an acute infection. Continuous or oft repeated use would raise very serious safety issues.
Note also that some vaccines are therapeutic: i.e.: effective even when given post infection (of course the infection can't be too advanced) Smallpox vaccine is totally curative even when given several days after infection.
The key point is that, while you can use drugs prophylatically in a limited number of cases, this cannot be done for an entire population as vaccines can. And it cannot be used to protect HCWs as vaccines can, because for drugs it would require that they take the drug continuously through an entire epidemic.
For as long as you take a nanoviricide the cell surface receptors that the nanoviricide imitates are going to be effectively rendered useless as the ligands that activate them are all trapped by the nanoviricides. Important parts of the immune system would be rendered dysfunctional - a particularly dangerous state for HCWs and others with increased exposure.
Population vaccines are simple, highly efficient and very low cost per vaccination. For epidemics local centers are set up and everyone in an area gets their vaccinations within a short time span. And one low cost HCW can vaccinate many hundreds of people per day.
"could possibly"! Get real! Even a weakly effective vaccine would save a very large number of lives. That's especially true when you take herd immunity into account. And it would be true for a vaccine for a highly lethal disease like Ebola even if a vaccine had considerably greater than usual safety issues. IMHO your skepticism is considerably overdone.
The conclusions you are drawing are total non sequiters (i.e.: do not follow from the evidence)
No one even made the claim here that an effective vaccine would obviate the need for a drug.
In fact I very explicitly noted that a drug would be needed even if an effective vaccine was available (and explicitly noted that not all get vaccinated and that very few vaccines provide 100% protection).
The point was that an effective vaccine will seriously and very significantly reduce the market for a drug. For example, a vaccine that is 80% effective and used by 80% of the population would prevent AT LEAST 64% of infections, thereby reducing the market for the drug by 64%. But in reality it would reduce the market far more than that due to the effect of herd immunity. So in that example the actual reduction in the market would be far above 64%, likely close to 99% reduction (because with 80% vaccination of an 80% effective vaccine, if the ROI (in unvaccinated populations) was less than 3 (which is a pretty high ROI) then the disease would die out of the population almost entirely (because the new ROI would be less than 1).
For many diseases (with low ROIs) an effective vaccine would virtually eliminate (reduce by 99% or more) the market for drugs and for almost all the reduction would be at least on the order of 50%.
Given that, past statements that vaccines are not revelant to the discussion are indisputably wrong.
A very key point is that herd immunity will greatly increase the effect of a vaccine. One cannot possibly understand the economics and markets for either vaccines or drugs without understanding herd immunity (which also applies to drugs: in the case of drugs the herd immunity effect comes from those who were infected and survived and thereby are resistant to reinfection. It works very differently with drugs as it builds up slowly and has maximum effect only as the spread of a disease burns out. The herd immunity effect of survivors is why after an epidemic has burned out, there is always a percent of the population that never got infected. ALWAYS, except for diseases that do not leave a lasting immunity (RSV, and others)
I totally agree with that statement as it stands.
I have presented highly detailed and well supported argument why vaccines should get priority over drugs (and very clearly are by both WHO and CIDRAP (as evidenced by this document:
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/sites/default/files/public/downloads/wellcome_trust-cidrap_ebola_vaccine_team_b_interim_report-final.pdf
Although disagreement has been expressed, no counter argument whatsoever has been presented.
As previously noted I closed out all my (small) position on NNVC last week and have only been "winding down" and "getting closure" here.
I'm done with this. I wish NNVC success: the technology has promise and the world really needs it if it works. But it is far less attractive to me than other investments for reasons already thoroughly discussed.
I truly hope that the stock does well and will be glad if it does. I will be making my money elsewhere but would in no way begrudge anyone making money on NNVC.
Different companies fit different investors approaches, risk profiles, preferences on management etc. It takes diversity to make almost anything viable.
You said that you thought drugs should get priority (over vaccines).
You did not say explicitly over vaccines. But priority has to be over something else and since vaccines were the only other thing under discussion and the only remotely comparable alternative, IMHO it was reasonable (unavoidable really) to interpret your statement that drugs should get priority over vaccines.
ANd I responded by presenting highly detailed arguments why vaccines should get priority over drugs. Just as you never said that vaccines should not be developed and used, in equal fashion I never remotely said that drugs should not be developed and used.
And you have presented no evidence nor counterarguments whatsoever to oppose my contention that vaccines should get PRIORITY (NOT saying REPLACE)
Clearly the WHO and CIDRAP both share my view (about vaccines getting priority over drugs.
CIDRAP recently released a report on "Fast Tracking the Development of Ebola VACCINES" which barely mentioned drugs at all, and only in passing. And no comparable document on fast tracking the development of drugs.
This is because, while an effective drug can save lives, it cannot significantly slow or prevent the spread of an outbreak. An effective vaccine can bring an outbreak to a very rapid stop (even without vaccinating the entire population due to "herd immunity" (again, one cannot understand either drugs nor vaccines' effects on pandemics and disease without understanding the concept of herd immunity)
-----------
the above was RE"You also fail to respond to my point that it would be difficult or impossible to inoculate large populations in third-world countries who believe that illnesses like HIV and Ebola were caused by Westerners who (in their opinions falsely) claimed to be providing medical care."
I have presented a highly detailed and well supported argument for why vaccines are highly relevant to any company that produces drugs. And you have not addressed those arguments in any way whatsoever despite repeating your contention that they are an off topic subject.
In addition you have presented no reasons or arguments whatsoever to support your claim. I can't address anything because there is nothing there to address.
RE: "As per the specific case of the measles vaccine: you claim that somehow, had more people been vaccinated against measles, there would be no outbreak now. Yet 2/3 of the measles patients in my state WERE vaccinated, including a college student who was condemned by the media for exposing dozens or hundreds of fellow students -- before it was revealed that indeed he WAS vaccinated. How would vaccinating more people with an ineffective vaccine have prevented this outbreak? "
I have presented a very sound (and universally accepted among the scientific community) explanation of exactly why antivaxers were clearly and indisputably (on scientific/medical grounds) responsible for the infections among those that were vaccinated. You did not address my argument in any way, other than to make a totally unsupported claim it was false. I suspect that's because you do not understand the basic concept of "herd immunity". I've given you references where you could learn what it is but you appear not to have checked them out. Unless you can understand the basic concept of herd immunity there is no way you can understand my argument. It is medically sound and IMHO no knowledgeable person would dispute it. if you disagree with that PLEASE PRESENT SOME LEAST VESTIGE OF A COUNTER ARGUMENT. (Which is entirely your right and I very strongly ENCOURAGE you and ENTREAT you to do it. I'm only noting that you have so far failed to do so.
RE: "You also fail to respond to my points that there are NO vaccines currently approved for many serious diseases" That's because that observation is totally irrelevant to the question under discussion: i.e. Whether an effective vaccine would be serious completion for a drug's market and hence a valid topic for discussion.
As for Ebola for example, NNVC currently has no approved drug for that disease. So your observation that there are no vaccines (currently) available is totally irrelevant, a complete unfair comparison! There are not any approved vaccines currently available BUT there are vaccines under development (just as Ebolacide is UNDER DEVELOPMENT) and, as I explicitly noted (and you appear to be overlooing) t[b[color=red]]here are multiple (at least SIX currently) Ebola vaccines MUCH FARTHER along in development that Ebolacide is.[/color] VERY much farther along:
http://www.biopharma-reporter.com/Bio-Developments/Ebola-which-are-the-leading-vaccine-candidates
(note that they say"LEADING" there are even more at earlier stages!)
RE: "You also fail to respond to my point that it would be difficult or impossible to inoculate large populations in third-world countries who believe that illnesses like HIV and Ebola were caused by Westerners who (in their opinions falsely) claimed to be providing medical care."
I considered that comment so flagrantly insignificant as to be not worth addressing. But since you insist on making an issue of it:
All of those comments apply to Polio vaccination. And yet the campaign to eradicate polio by vaccination is continuing, and with good results despite all of that. IMHO that clearly demonstrates that your concerns are irrelevant/invalid.
There is a great deal of variation among the readers of this (and any other) board in many respects. Each will draw his/her own conclusions based on his/her abilities and biases. I'm just trying to present evidence to support what I feel is a very valid (and very well supported) viewpoint.
RE: your highly personal definition of long term study: It is very different from the currently applied standard which is equally applied to BOTH drugs and vaccines. I addressed the conventional standard BOTH because that is what is currently used, for both drugs and vaccines AND because it it totally unfair and misleading to apply your individual standard to vaccines BUT NOT TO DRUGS as you were doing.
Interestingly I happen to agree that the much longer and thorough studies you suggest should be done. I'm only saying it's totally unreasonable to apply that stand to vaccines and NOT to drugs. See the "China Study" for an excellent example of how it should be done (SURPRISE: I'm actually both well informed on that topic and even happen to agree with you EXCEPT when you attempt a "double standard" and try to hold vaccines up to that stand while ignoring its application to drugs.
I was making a FAIR comparison between drugs and vaccines based on the current prevailing standard for "long term studies"
Studies of the very extreme kind he was suggesting are not currently done for either drugs nor vaccines, It would, therefore, be highly inaccurate, misleading and unfair to use the lack of them to make an unfavorable comparison between drugs and vaccines.
The basic principle here is that if the evidence is the same for both things, it is incapable of making a differentiation between the two.
this is not to in any way whatsoever suggest that such studies should not be done (in fact IMHO they should be, and for many other things in addition to for drugs and vaccines (see the "China Study" for an outstanding example of how it SHOULD be done (and no surprise that was done in China and not the USA)
Vaccines are strongly competitive for drug markets In fact they are far stronger competition for a disease indication than another drug could possibly be. This is because an effective vaccine can handle a disease far more cost effectively than a drug but preventing the overwhelming majority of infections that would otherwise occur. A vaccination program for an entire population can easily cost less than the cost of treating the cases that are thereby prevented since treatment costs include far more (and far greater in total) than just the cost of drugs used to treat, even though the number of vaccinations is generally much higher than the number of treatments required absent vaccinations. Adding greatly to vaccines cost effectiveness is that they also prevent the loss of income and many other indirect costs of the illnesses prevented.
In addition, vaccines are far more effective at containing or limiting the spread of disease: Drugs (except when used prophylactically - which has a number of problems) cannot significantly contribute to containment or reduce the spread of disease because they're not used until a patient is diagnosed with a disease, by which time (for most diseases) they may have already infected a few others. In contrast, has those who were infected been vaccinated, most of those infections would never have occurred and in addition infections of those would have been infected by those infections would never occur and so on down the full length of each and every chain therein.
Because of this, vaccines are potentially very strong competitors for a drugs market. And effective vaccine could (and has in many instances) reduced the market for a drug to a small fraction of what it was before a vaccine was available.
This is not, of course, to say that drugs are therefore not needed. It is still highly essential to develop and produce drugs as well even when an effective vaccine is available. Very few vaccines are 100% effective and there are always some who do not get vaccinated.
NOTE: for this reason, despite some contentions to the contrary, vaccine are unquestionably a topic highly relevant to a company that produces drugs.
Drano: I suggest you look "herd immunity" up on wikipedia. Also look up “vaccine” and see how they really work. You apprear IMHO to have some serious misconceptions here. Due to the effect of the percentage of those vaccinated lowering the ROI of the disease, even if only 80% of a population is vaccinated, and the vaccine is only 80% effective, a disease will die out in that population if it's ROI in an unvaccinated population is less than 3, for example. (there is always a possibility of reintroduction from outside unless a disease is totally eradicate (as was Smallpox) - something only possible when the disease exists ONLY in humans (does not apply to Ebola, infuenza, MERS and other NNVC targets).
So saying a vaccine is “ineffective” just because a single individual, or even a fairly large number of individuals get ill despite being vaccinated is just plain incorrect . "Efficacy" is a very well established and precisely calculated concept for vaccines and does not remotely require 100# to be considered "effective". I would suggest you do a search on wikipedia for "vaccines and efficacy".
As for the problem with pertussis: this kind of problem happens occasionally. Most technologies are subject to a few such problems and very few technologies are perfect. The fact that occasional problems exist should not obscure the vastly more significant fact that the overwhelming majority of lives saved by medicine in the last few hundred years were saved by VACCINES and not by drugs.
The big problem with the anti vaxers is their apparent inability to deal with simple math. What antivaxers recommend would cost far more lives than are lost due to very rare bad reactions. Almost no drug is totally safe. The appropriate question is whether or not the benefits outweigh the risks. And the statistics show that in the case of the measles vaccine, the benefits are many orders of magnitude larger than the risks. Anti vaxers are mostly wealthy and well educated. What the anti vaxers are attempting to do is to “free ride” (the kind of parasitic activity that the wealthy class is prone to unfairly accusing the “economically challenged” class of doing). They know what herd immunity is and figure that their unvaccinated kids will be protected by other people's kids being vaccinated. (what they failed to consider is that in the USA the wealthy live in highly concentrated areas and herd immunity acts on a local level. Plus they tend to travel a lot. So all it took was ONE person bringing measles into their enclaces and the disease took off.)
As for long term studies, there is some merit to that concern BUT it applies to the overwhelming majority of medicine, to the overwhelming majority of our food supply (hydrogenation of fats was NEVER tested and killed MILLIONS of people before they finally, after more than a half century, acknowledge it was doing serious damage), to a great deal of the chemicals used in households and at workplaces, to the use of fluorescent lighting (actually a powerful study was done and then ignored because it would have cost employers too much money). And much more. It is totally unreasonable to hold vaccines to a standard that is not used for everything else. Plus many of the other things provide no benefits whatsoever except for increased profits for manufacturers. Whereas, again, vaccines have saved more lives in the last few hundred years that all drugs put together.
As for the elderly: even a 5% effective vaccine would be better than no vaccination. Most diseases are far more serious in the elderly, for whom a vaccine is more likely to be preventing a serious illness or death than an inconveniencing illness as for most of the young. It is important to prevent vaccine doses from being too high or they may cause adverse reactions by the immune system. But the elderly have weaker immune systems so a higher dose for them would be appropriate.
You appear to condemn all vaccines based on a very small number with problems (and most of them minor and all of them far less than the benefits). Your conjectures about the WHO are so obviously wrong that they, IMHO, are not even worth addressing, most especially considering what the who (and CIDRAP) are doing right now, which totally contradicts your rank conjectures.
www.who.int/en
and
www.CIDRAP.umn.edu
It is very difficult on a personal level to deal with very rare cases of extreme adverse reactions. But are you seriously suggesting that thousands of children should die so that one might live? If you claim that's not your intent, please explain just how exactly, there could be any different result if vaccination if not done just because in very rare cases they cause problems. Note that virtually every drug, including even aspirin, causes serious problems in at least a few rare case (and in general in far larger numbers than vaccines). They are trying very hard to learn why such rare reactions occur and how to predict and avoid them. But in the meantime, the benefits vastly outweigh the risks. FOR EXAMPLE a very small percentage (less than 1 in 10,000) of people died from smallpox vaccines. So would you say that, because of that unfortunate reality we should have let smallpox rage uncontested and let many thousands of more people die?
Treatment is NEVER preferable to effective vaccination. Any physician will tell you it's better to never get a disease than to get it and get a drug for it. This is not to say that treatments are not needed. They most assuredly are, even when an effective vaccine is available. But treatment IN LIEU OF vaccination is never PREFERABLE and no responsible physician will say that. No drug is ever 100% effective and, in the real world, in no case is any drug always administered in a timely fashion to all cases. A percentage of cases treated will always have serious problems or even die despite the treatment and effective vaccination keeps the number of total infections (and hence also the number of deaths and poor responses to treatment) far lower.
That is flagrantly, obviously and indisputably false!
RE"There have been NO long-term safety studies on vaccines"
Vaccines go thru all Phases of clinical trials: Phase I, II's and III's. In addition, monitoring for problems continues long after a vaccine is approved, exactly as is done with drugs.
I am at a complete loss as to imagine where you could have gotten such a completely false idea. (or maybe not, but I'm not going there)
Perhaps you care to enlighten us as to your source for that "interesting" bit of "information"?
PS Modern adjuvants do not accumulate and have no inherent tendency to toxicity (as do mercury and aluminum) I suggest that you check out Novavax's "Matrix-M" adjuvant for an example of an adjuvant many times for effective than the older ones, with no evidence whatsoever of safety problems and thoroughly excreted from the body after use.
and, one more time, since you appear to be having remarkable difficultly getting this: I never on any occasion whatsoever in any way whatsoever either said or implied that "we shouldn't develop treatments because people ought to be able to avoid" something. NOR has anyone else on this board said or implied any such thing. That's a pure straw dog of your own creation.
In addition, no one has said anything remotely like "vaccines will prevent all disease" AH! But you weren't actually saying that anyone was saying it, only IMPLYING that someone was saying it. How utterly disingenuous. As are your repeated attempts to mislabel vaccines as an "off topic" subject. Serious competition for a company's markets is always HIGHLY relevant discussion. And it's very well known that an effective vaccine can enormously reduce the number of infections from a disease - by many orders of magnitude - a hundred times is not at all uncommon. How you could honestly imagine that vaccines are not a relevant topic is completely beyond me.
Vaccines are, and always will be, a serious potential competitor for nanoviricides' markets. This is especially true given that new vaccine technologies (like NVAX's VLP technology for example) are able to address vaccine targets that were totally resistant to the old vaccine technologies (RSV and the neuraminidase target for influenzas*1, for example, which NVAX has shown data for that was so outstanding it got a publication of intermim Phase I results in the NEJM despite them having a long standing policy against publishing any Phase I results much less interim Phase I)
*1 which has massive implications for the potential market for Flucide. And NVAX's quadrivalent seasonal influenza vaccine (and its H7N9 vaccine and more) are years closer to commercialization that Flucide. seasonal has done multiple Phase II's already and H7N9 will complete a Phase I/II (already fast tracked) in May this year.
That claim has been thoroughly refuted with sound arguments and yet you go right on making it without in any way whatsoever addressing the arguments raised against your claims.
And that lack, IMHO, says it all.
People can (and IMHO will) draw their own conclusions from that.
Turn that on it's head:
"if one vaccination is good does it follow that 200 vaccinations are good?" True.
It is ALSO true that "if one vaccine is bad*1 does it foloow that 200 vaccines are bad?"
*1 not that a few very rare cases of bad reactions do not remotely make a vaccine "bad". You would have a very difficult time finding ANY drug that did not have at least a few rare bad side effects. Even aspirin can cause very serious problems (and not that rare, either).
The basic problem here is that some are being extremely hypocritical in applying a very different set of standards to vaccines and drugs.
The question should be "what is the balance between risks and benefit" That is the universally accepted approach in the medical community and yet it is being totally ignored here (and, most especially, by the anti vaxers.)
You judge vaccines and drugs by totally different standards.
Vaccines have problems and drugs have problems. The level of problems with vaccines is trivial compared to the level of problems with drugs and yet you focus exclusively on problems with a few vaccines and present them as if they somehow prove that vaccines in general are bad.
Vaccines have save more, vastly more lives during the last several hundred years than have drugs. And the number of lives lost due to problems with vaccines is many orders of magnitude (factors of 10) less than the number of lives lost due to problems with drugs. That undisputed, universally accepted cold hard fact alone shows how warped and biased your attitude toward vaccines is.
RE: "Do you think that those people who were vaccinated for measles but got the virus anyway don't deserve to benefit from a research focus on treatment rather than the prevention that failed them?"
You are suggesting that because measles vaccines fail in a few cases (and vastly fewer cases that the overwhelming majority of drugs fail) and despite that this vaccine has reduced the annual number of cases of measles by 10's or 100's of thousands, that research should "focus on treatment"?! That we should give secondary emphasis to millions of cases of disease prevented and give primary emphasis to a small handful of cases where the vaccine failed? I never said that we should ignore treatments, of course we should work on them. But to give them priority over highly effective prevention is astoundingly inappropriate.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that apparently your investment in a drug has so warped your perspective that you have become blind to the most extreme imbalances of value.
RE: "I do not think that the 2/3 of measles victims who WERE vaccinated would agree that the vaccine was effective."
What you are completely missing here is that the antivaxers and NOT weakness in the vaccine, are directly responsible for the infection of those who got infected despite vaccination. Had the level of vaccination in the LOCAL populations been high enough (which it was before the antivaxers started spouting their distortions) they never would have been infected because herd immunity would have kept the virus from spreading when the few cases were brought into the community from abroad. Prior to the anit vaccination campaigns, such imported cases died out quickly with very short chains of transmission if any at all.
It is very clear that you don't understand the implications of herd immunity (incidentally this concept is very important to drugs as well as vaccines: herd immunity due to survivors (rather than vaccination) has huge implication for the rate of spread of outbreaks. Again, you really should look up "herd immunity" so you can understand what's taking place and avoid coming to very false conclusions (as, for example, failing to realize that the infections of those who were vaccinated are not really a failure of the vaccine, which would have prevented them by herd immunity absent the "free riding" of the anti vaxers, but directly attributable to the anti vaxers.
READ THIS STORY to see how the antivaxers are directly responsible for infecting others:
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/why-dad-fighting-keep-unvaccinated-kids-out-school
Vaccinations are highly relevant to NNVC because they address some of the same targets/markets and their use can have huge effects on the potential markets for NNVCs products.
is that sarcasm?
A vaccine does not have to work at more than 80% efficacy or so to keep a disease out of the population, even if a significant percentage is not vaccinated. Unless a disease has an extraordinarily high ROI (rate of infection) of > 5, "herd immunity" will protect a small percentage of the population that does not get vaccinated.
But vaccination is not distributed evenly: the antivaxers tend to be concentrated in local areas with high income (i.e.: those who are educated enough to believe that herd immunity will protect their kids even if unvaccinated (a form of deliberate "free riding") What they failed to take into account is that herd immunity works on a local level! And when the disease got into their local pockets of low vaccination it took off. But the overall population is still well protected.
It's not ignorance per se that does the damage. It's ignorance relative to the issue at hand. In this case the smug antivaxers who thought they were free riding did not know enough.
As for YOUR ignorance: There is a VERY LOW level of risk for the measles vaccine. But the risks of NOT getting vaccinated are far higher. Unless you are counting on "free riding" to get protection from herd immunity. But if too many others free ride at the same time, herd immunity fails. Parasitism has its limits.
To say that "it would be far better to have an effective treatment"(than to have a vaccine) is utter garbage. No treatment is 100% effective, and even if it was, under real world conditions (most especially in the USA!) there would be a lot of people who would not get the treatment in time for various reasons (a VERY large number in the USA).
Vaccine and no treatment is vastly better than treatment but no vaccine. No matter how good any drug is, with an effective vaccine and a reasonable level of vaccination,the number of cases is far lower than without one. And no drug is ever applied to all cases. The effect is that the number of deaths and long term damage will be far higher with drug but no vaccine than with vaccine AND effective level of vaccination but no drug.
But we need BOTH. But note that CIDRPA is very heavily emphasizing vaccines over drugs> They did a major report on "Fast Tracing Development of Ebola Vaccines" that barely mentioned drugs at all and only in passing. No comparable report for drugs. You want BOTH, but if you had to choose, a vaccine is the way to go.
RE: "There are also no studies that prove efficacy of the flu vaccine" DEAD WRONG! There was a very thorough study recently, for example, that proved to an extraordinarily high standard that this year's flu vaccine is only 23% effective. And similar studies are done every season. There is no guessing whatsoever here.
ANd 23% protection is very much worth getting. The benefit of even that level vastly outweighs the very small risks. Despite that it "does not work very well" in the elderly, the risk/benefit for them is still positive and high. The efficacy varies greatly between seasons due to both mutations and, especially, reasortment. This is because of the necessity to manufacture vaccine 6 months or more in advance of the season (except now NVAX can do it far faster) meaning vaccines are based on virus knowledge 6 months out of date - a very long time for an influenza virus.
If you are paying these "sources" you are getting fleeced, big time.
As any good con man could tell you, the easiest mark is a wannabe con man.
PS let me add that my policy (to which no exceptions whatsoever will be made under any circumstances) is to not receive any inside information (i.e.: not available to the general investing public) and if I should unintentionally come across it (which has happened) to never use it in any investing decisions (means I avoid making ones I would probably have made without it (cost me some $$$$ with CRA) and not to discuss nor hint at it in any way whatsoever on public forums (and in doubt, leave it out is my policy).
If your "sources are people trying to just interpret the science of publicly accessible knowledge for you (without any inside knowledge) they are not remotely getting the job done.
UPDATED: It sounds like an uniformed attempt to just make stuff up. But maybe there is a (slightly) less unfavorable interpretation. It is clearly very scrambled if it ever came from a valid explanation in the first place.
Assuming it was scrambled and trying to work out what it was scrambled from:
Viruses have proteins on their surface that they use to attach to cell surface receptors. I assume that's what is meant by “attachment points” But no matter what the shape (or size) a virus is, it must, in order to survive, be able to effectively attach to cells surface receptors using those points. Whatever the shape and size of the virus is, it must not hamper that process. So “the shape of the virus is not as defined and symmetrical as other viruses, so the attachment points may not be as effective" is pure and utter garbage as it stands. It may be a very confused and scrambled gross misinterpretation of what was once a valid point (about hidden protein fragments, which have nothing whatsoever to do with virus shape, but do have something to do with PROTEIN “shape”, properly called protein FOLDING.)
It's so utterly scrambled and confused as it stands, that it is totally meaningless and I cannot even work out what the original point was (there are several possibilities) IF there was some original point.
There may (or may not) be some real information at the start of all that. Or it may be total garbage. But what is indisputable is that thru this chain of communication, nothing intelligible or remotely usefull comes thru.
I would suggest that if this was truly from some “source” (and not just a very uninformed attempt to make something up) then that source is either totally confused and ill informed itself or they are unable to convey any real meaning to you due to a serious lack of scientific background at one (or more) points. I would therefore strongly advise you to discontinue using this “source” whoever or whatever it may be.
Use the analogy of having an "inside source" of something in a foreign language (which science is to many, especially in the USA where science education has been thoroughly demolished by extremist religion) which you are unable to translate intelligibly. If you cannot get a usable translation it makes no difference if the original information is good or utter garbage. In either case it's highly dangerous to attempt to use it to base decisions on unless you can get an accurate translation.
IF science education was up to standards in the USA this would not be remotely the widespread problem it is today.
PS Maybe they meant (or you misheard) "the shape of the MICELLES" rather that "the shape of the VIRUS". (that's why I say that multiple possibilities exist for attempting to unscramble it). That might indicate a manufacturing problem or a basic problem with the inherent structure. BUT that sounds HIGHLY unlikely because the micelles IF PROPERLY MADE should be a great deal larger than the receptors. You might want to consider putting me into direct contact with your "sources" if they are real and maybe I could unscramble it. (I can be PMed here but cannot reply expect during free time for 1 hour on Friday or anytime if PMed "elsewhere".
I can well understand your desperation. I just sold out my last few shares and for good this time. (for reasons discussed elsewhere)
However there are some things that are not worth doing just for the sake of unloading shares.
Utterly shameless.
1.5 Billion vests per year demand?!?!?! (NorthEastern, not KBLB)
That's about one out of every six of the entire planet's population buying one EVERY year. Or every man, woman AND CHILD buying one every six years.
Well, in all fairness, the children would need a new one that often.
Now where are the kids in Chad going to get the money?
Mind boggling.
Sadly this is clearly not KBLB's work: none of the scientists are among those known to work with KBLB nor are any of the institutions listed. In addition the tool used for the genetic modifications is not either one of those used by KBLB (the piggyBac transposon and zinc fingers).
I suspect that the 53% increase in TOUGHNESS (which is the critical measure!) eclipses KBLB's figures (unless Big Red was far superior to Monster Silk - but if so why hadn't that been PRed? KBLBs had the equipment to test it for many months now).
Even if KBLB can compete with this, the competition is almost certain to really drive down the profit margin.
KBLB was just too slow, IMHO.
Testing of MERS nanoviricide:
(I haven't had time to catch up here so my apologies for whatever duplication this may contain.) Portions are cross posted (from one of my own posts so it's "legal":
Article (saying a MERS vaccine was a very long ways away) was dead wrong: NVAX MERS Vaccine is highly likely and soon [i.e. tests in primates then on to clinical trials IF funding is forthcoming]. NNVC needs to begin animal tests for MERS ASAP. Both a therapy and a vaccine are very urgently needed. But it will be easier to get "free" funding (BARDA, PATH, Saudi Arabia) for development of MERS nanoviricide before a vaccine has passed a clinical trial.
[[[ Right now the pressure is intense for therapy and/or vaccine for MERS and NNVC needs to take advantage of that if possible. (NVAX, for example has had 100's of millions of dollars of funding from BARDA and PATH and has had to give up no royalties nor shares whatsoever to get that. NNVC could do much the same IMHO if it gets some stellar results on MERS tests. Saudi Arabia would be begging them to take money.]]]
[The possibility of getting stuck with a vaccine no one wants] is exactly why the CEO of NVAX has said that NVAX is waiting for funding before carrying it further (and any other vaccine company in the same position would do the same). Worth noting is that the NVAX vaccine generates antibodies to the spike protein that is the same in both MERS and SARS (and all other coronaviruses in that subclass) and is critical to both. So not only would NVAX's vaccine be good in both camels and humans for MERS, it would be good for SARS as well (which would make a stockpile order a lot more attractive.
Nanoviricides work by imitating the receptors that viral proteins attach to. For each target NNVC chooses, of course, the proteins most critical to the virus and in the case of MERS that's clearly the spike protein. So IMHO is safe to conclude that the MERS nanoviricide carries protein from the receptors that the spike protein binds to. If that's the case then the MERS nanoviricide should also work against both MERS and SARS and all other members of that subclass of coronaviruses as well.
PHE said last July, 9 months ago, that they would test the MERS nanoviricide. However, at that time, there was not a small animal model available to test it on:
Lack of small animal model hinders MERS coronavirus research.
Devitt E.
Nat Med. 2013 Aug;19(8):952. doi: 10.1038/nm0813-952. No abstract available.
PMID:
23921729
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
==============================
GEN News Highlights
More »
Jul 8, 2013
Public Health England to Test Nanoviricides Against H7N9, MERS
NanoViricides, a development-stage company focused on nanomaterials for viral therapy, has signed a “confidential disclosure agreement” with Public Health England, Britain’s equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The deal will reportedly allow scientists at Public Health England to develop a specific proposal for the testing of different nanoviricides, such as FluCide®, against viruses of “mutual interest” to both organizations.
The first two such interests are H7N9, the influenza virus now circulating in China, and the latest version of the coronavirus now circulating in the Middle East, also known as MERS. Both H7N9 and the MERS CoV (coronavirus) have reportedly high case fatality rates.
Testing of nanoviricides antiviral drug candidates will be performed in a BSL 3/4 facility at Public Health England. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
===============
There has not been a small animal model to test MERS vaccines and therapies in until just about a month ago:
=====================
A mouse model for Betacoronavirus subgroup 2c [[ subclassification of coronaviruses that contains both MERS and SARS ]] using a bat coronavirus strain HKU5 variant.
Agnihothram S, Yount BL Jr, Donaldson EF, Huynh J, Menachery VD, Gralinski LE, Graham RL, Becker MM, Tomar S, Scobey TD, Osswald HL, Whitmore A, Gopal R, Ghosh AK, Mesecar A, Zambon M, Heise M, Denison MR, Baric RS.
MBio. 2014 Mar 25;5(2):e00047-14. doi: 10.1128/mBio.00047-14.
Mouse Model for MERS (betacoronavirus subgroup 2c) created <<< live link
AND
Rapid generation of a mouse model for Middle East respiratory syndrome.
Zhao J, Li K, Wohlford-Lenane C, Agnihothram SS, Fett C, Zhao J, Gale MJ Jr, Baric RS, Enjuanes L, Gallagher T, McCray PB Jr, Perlman S.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Apr 1;111(13):4970-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1323279111. Epub 2014 Mar 5.
Rapid generation of a mouse model for Middle East respiratory syndrome <<< live link
===================
Novavax was obviously ready and waiting because their results on their MERS vaccine using that model was published only a few weeks later! They had to have been set up and ready to roll the moment they got the mice!
==================
Mers vaccine helps mice fight off deadly virus <<< live link
01 May 14 by Liat Clark
Now, a team from the University of Maryland and biopharmaceutical company Novavax says its vaccine candidate has successfully induced neutralising antibodies that effectively block the virus from infecting cells in mice.
=========================
Dr Seymour only very recently said that NNVC had sufficient MERScide to test. But disappointingly he said nothing about the testing actually starting or when it would begin. I would imagine that there is a huge backlog of tests that were waiting for that small animal model. And such testing with require a biolevel 3/4 facility and there are very few of them available. NNVC also has an agreement with a private company that has its own level 3 lab to do the MERS test. I suspect that the backlog of tests awaiting a small animal model was the reason that he made that additional arrangement and hopefully it will speed up the testing. Public Health England (PHE) is, of course, a branch of government and highly subject to political influence in setting the schedules of testing.
If they now have enough material, and a small animal model is available, why hasn't NNVC said anything about when testing will start? They might be awaiting enough mice, but those things breed pretty fast and, considering the pent up demand and the low cost of breeding (vs development) IMHO they would have been breeding at full speed while the testing was going on.
HIV is not where NNVC should be devoting resources right now.
HIV is one of the most challenging diseases there is. It is a chronic disease with great ability to hide latent in hidden reservoirs and it is a slowly developing one. For those reasons, clinical trials in it are very long and drawn out.
[I have a major position in one company, SGMO, that has an anti-HIV therapy in the works but that is only incidental to my interest in it and if it was the major therapy I'd not be invested there. They began their first clinical trial in HIV in 2009 and are still only in Phase I/II.]
In addition there is huge competition for HIV therapies.
In addition there is already an existing highly effective therapy. It has many problems and is far from ideal but it does exist.
NNVC has a wide range of targets that it could have a drug on the market for in a small fraction of the time it could, even in the best possible case scenario, do for HIV. HIV trials would be exceptionally long and drawn out and fiendishly expensive. NNVC might well not survive that struggle and if it did, it would experience remarkable dilution along the way.
IMHO NNVC should only work on HIV to the extent (and ONLY to the extent) that all work is funded by a partner or grant so that it did not delay or drain resources from other activities.
NNVC can get vastly more benefit to vastly more people far sooner with other therapies than with an HIV drug.
If I ever thought that NNVC was placing more than a minor interest not totally self financed (by OUTSIDE funding) I would not invest in it.
HIV is very critical research and must be continued. But it is very challenging, expensive and long drawn out work and ONLY companies in a position to be able to afford it should take it on. NNVC is not remotely in a position to do so unless it gets full funding from outside for that specific purpose. Where funding can be used for other purposes it should be.
If you go to a fire and your ladder will only reach the 2nd or 3rd floor, you concentrate on rescuing people from those floors and do not waste time AND LIVES on useless attempts to rescue people from the higher floors, most especially when there are others already effectively doing that. That's not from any lack of concern for the patients on higher floors, it's simple acknowledgement of harsh reality and making the most effective use of what you have. "Triage" is one of the most important principles of medicine and it would be a major problem were NNVC to ignore it.
JMHO. Please note: I am very pro NNVC which is exactly why I post this.
Iran records first MERS cases month before Ramadan
Both among patients who had been in hospital with a pilgrim returning from Saudi Arabia.
Middle East Online
All returning pilgrims to be tested
TEHRAN - Iran has recorded its first two cases of the deadly MERS virus, both among patients who had been in hospital with a pilgrim returning from Saudi Arabia, reports said Wednesday.
The two infected women are sisters and one is in a critical condition, transmissible diseases unit chief Mohammad Mehdi Gooya told the Fars news agency.
Both are receiving specialist treatment in the hospital in the southern province of Kerman where they are believed to have been infected.
There was no immediate word on whether the returning pilgrim who was the suspected carrier had tested positive for the coronavirus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
The vast majority of MERS cases worldwide since the virus's discovery two years ago have been in Saudi Arabia.
Nearly all cases recorded elsewhere have been among people who had recently travelled to the kingdom or one of its Gulf Arab neighbours, or had been in contact with someone who had.
Iran's first reported cases come just a month before the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan when pilgrim numbers are expected to rise sharply.
Nearly 900,000 Iranians make the pilgrimage to the Muslim holy places in Saudi Arabia each year, most of them during the annual hajj, which this year falls in October.
Gooya said Iranian authorities would test all returning pilgrims and that anybody displaying potential symptoms would be kept under quarantine for two weeks.
MERS is considered a deadlier but less transmissible cousin of the SARS virus, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, that appeared in Asia in 2003 and killed hundreds of people, mainly in China.
Like SARS, it appears to cause a lung infection, with patients suffering coughing, breathing difficulties and a temperature. But MERS differs in that it also causes rapid kidney failure.
Studies have confirmed that the likely source of the disease is among Saudi Arabia's huge camel herd.
But a cluster of cases among medical staff and hospital patients in the kingdom in recent months have shown that the virus can be transmitted from person to person unless strict precautions are taken.
The World Health Organisation has urged medical authorities across the globe to step up measures to prevent infection.
======================
The situation has entered a higher level of risk. I cannot imagine neither the Saudi's nor BARDA funding rapid development of a MERS vaccine as quickly as possible. Since NVAX is the only company that has demonstrated in an animal model the ability to block MERS infection, what other company would they conceivably fund for that purpose?
This, IMHO, is new territory
It appears that NNVC evaluated the technologies ability to address microbial infections (in addition to viruses).
Evidently they found that avenue to not be promising and just dropped it. Good companies check out various potential applications, most of which turn out to be blind alleys or not worth pursuing and they just drop them. There is nothing whatsoever unusual about that, it's dead standard, an inevitable part of the process of drug development and should be expected.
Nanoviricides were, as the name suggests, created with viruses as the intended target. Because of huge differences between viruses and bacteria, I am not at all surprised that that approach was not fruitful. But it was worth checking out since, had it been successful, it would have vastly increased the potential markets for the technology.
What counts in biotech is not the failures and blind alleys, which are always present with any company whether you see the evidence of them or not. What counts are the successes and NNVC has had a number of very good ones at this point.
PS My purpose in visiting here was to see if anyone had inappropriately taken the BS about Pfizer seriously. I am encouraged to note that apparently no one has.
Current microprinting technology does not remotely have the capacity to print fibers with spider silk protein with a normal functional structure. SSP is a self assembling protein and the correct assembly requires that the protein go thus simultaneous and COORDINATED changes in multiple parameters during the formation of the fiber (and it's not certain that all of the critical parameters are even know yet, but they certainly include pH, hydration, tension (the silk is pulled out of the spinaret, not extruded)and more).
IMHO, anyone who expects a 3-D printer to be able to handle that has probably been watching too much Star Trek and reading too few trade journals on what the printers can actually do and certainly does not appreciate the complexity of the self assembly process of spider silk. There are good reasons why no one has come remotely close to duplicating the process despite many $millions being spent.
PS: Before investing in any 3D printing technology I would strong suggest taking a very good look at what the technology can actually do today (as opposed to the potential) **and at what price** and what the market price for the same thing is under current production methods.
PS: the company that was by a huge margin far in advance of the rest in 3D printing went bankrupt a year or so ago and no one wanted to buy it because there were not currently MARKETS large enough or able to afford the cost of what it could produce.
What you fail to understand is that it is entirely normal and expected for some genetic variations to "conflict" with the GMs made and also for them to be weeded out as a natural consequence of the ramping up of the population EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF DIRECTED SELECTION. Those variations that "conflict" with the genetic modifications reproduce less efficiently than those compatible with them, so as the population gets ramped up, the lines become progressively more efficient. (Epigenetic modifications are also involved in the process but that's far above the level of most here.)
I do not know of any biotech whatsoever (and defy anyone to mention even a single example) that PR's routine and expected problems that occur during the course of product development and that have standard and routine solutions.
PS: a 30% reproduction rate is entirely acceptable for silkworm production (their rate is 100 to 200X per generation and the cost of raising and reproducing them is very low and only a very small fraction of production costs (which are overwhelmingly reeling and spinning). So a 30 to 60X reproduction rate would have been entirely workable.
The cost of production is essentially the same as for normal silk and far lower than the value of the high tech product so minor variations in the cost of production will not even show up in the first couple of digits of revenues.
In any event your argument is a total non sequiter because production uniformity is totally unrelated to the reproduction rate.
Your "logic" is totally flawed in that it relies entirely on rank generalizations that ignore the most fundamental points of all:
1) all production animals have genetic variation. They are selected only for genetic sequence related to production. Other genetic variations are not only not selected out, but is highly desirable. (If you want to know how much extensive damage insufficient genetic variation can do to a species, check out the many serious problems that are threatening the survival of the cheetah due to it passing thru a "genetic bottleneck" that removed most of its genetic variation.)
2) there has never been any study showing unintended genetic variation(s) by SGMO's zinc fingers and they have a totally consistent history of performing the exact genetic modification intended in exactly the location intended and no other (with very rare exceptions of "off target hits" which are readily identified and weeded out of lines of production animals in those unusual cases where they occur).
3) there was no indication whatsoever that the genetic variation that the PR discussed was in any sequence modified by zinc fingers.
I defy you to show me a single study where SGMO's zinc fingers caused a significant problem due to adding unintended genetic variations.
You provide no reasoning whatsoever for your assertion that the "finger points at zinc fingers" [for causing the genetic variation] I defy you to present a single valid reason in support of that contention. There simply is none.
Why genetic variation is not a problem (and is a dead standard part of all genetic modicication of transgenic animals for production purposes.)
You are failing to distinguish between genetic variation at the site of the genetic modifications and genetic variation elsewhere in the genome. There has been no indication whatsoever at any time whatsoever of unintended genetic variation at the site(s) of genetic modifications using zinc fingers.
There is considerable variation in the Large Commercial Worm (LWC) in parts of the genome not important for silk production (and that is a desirable thing). Such variations do not affect silk but make the worms more robust and resistant to environmental stresses.
Read my past posts carefully what is affecting the silk (adding variability is variations in sequence that are not important to the production of normal silk (and thus not consistent in the LCW) but which ARE important in the production of KBLB's silk with SSP added, almost certainly because of the exceptionally large demand for two amino acids used in much smaller amounts in normal silk. That would explain why selection occurring as a normal part of the ramping up of the MS population caused large improvements in viability, for example.
MS worms are only HALF LCWs, the other half of their genes come from the wild type worm to which the original GMs were made (using the piggyBac transposon which makes random insertions.) the piggyBac was not used at any point in Big Red and all GMs were into EXACT locations with zinc fingers.
Some degree of adaption in other genes is necessary for ANY genetically modified production animal (the effects of genes are highly interrelated) and this should not in any way whatsoever be viewed as an unusual problem In fact, it is a DEAD STANDARD part of the creation of transgenic production organisms (both plants and animals. It's not often discussed precisely because it is so dead standard and very routine to do and occurs during the ramping up of the population and so does not result in undue delays.
The nature of the fibers is determined almost entirely by a very small handful of genes and there is no reason whatsoever why KBLB should have any problem in making the fiber completely consistent exactly as has been done already with a wide range of agricultural products.
As long as the genes coding for the proteins (only 3 involved), the spinning and the metabolism of the two amino acids that make up most of those proteins are consistent, a reasonable degree of variation will not only not affect the quality of the silk in any way, but is actually desirable as it will make the worms more robust and resistant to environmental stress. (Which is why the large commercial worm had variability (in the sequence not important to silk production) in the first place.
Big Red was done with SGMO's zinc fingers, NOT ND/Dr Fraser's piggybac. THe GMs were thus done in the EXACT location targeted and completely stable. (see my first post today for an explanation of the genetic variability and why it is not a problem (as has ALREADY been demonstrated with MS.)
THe genetic variation will be in sequence not important in production of normal silk and hence variable in the Large Commercial Worm from which Big Red (and MS *in part*) was developed. A small part of it would be important in the metabolism of the two amino acids used in very exceptionally large amounts in spider silk protein. Just as almost certainly was the case with MS, the variations most favorable for that metabolism will be selected for during the ramp up of the Big Red population (and the new testing equipment will make the selection for that more directed and much more efficient this time),
KBLB has this under very good control and is taking all appropriate steps as evidence by the acquisition and modification of the testing equipment.
This genetic variation is not a problem, but rather an opportunity, just as it was with MS (see my post just prior to this one for details).
why this PR is being misinterpreted by some IMHO:
"a lot of variability, which may be an indication of genetic variation within the transgenic colony" does not appear to be good, at first glance. For high tech products, consistency is critical. This is particularly true in products where strength is very important as it will be for most of KBLB's anticipated applications for it's fibers: a small localized inconsistency can lead to product failure. But there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.
Big Red was done by genetically transforming the Large Commercial Silkworm line, which is a standard commercial breed that should have had very little genetic variation (in contrast to MS in which the genetic transformations were done on a wild type worm with high genetic variation). In addition the genetic modifications that created Big Red were all done using SGMO's zinc finger technology which makes genetic changes at exactly the targeted location (in contrast to the piggyBac transposon used to make the GMs in MS which made random transformations). So genetic variability may seem surprising.
The explanation may be that the genetic consistency in the Large Commercial Worm (LCW) may be mainly in the sequence that is important in silk characteristics and production and there might be significant variability in the rest of its genome (which actually would be a good thing). IF that suspicion is correct then the problem may be that a few genetic variations that don't affect gene production for ordinary silk are highly important in the production of silk containing spider silk proteins. In fact, there are very good reasons why that is highly likely to be the case: spider silk protein has a very unusual structure that consists almost entirely of just two amino acids, leading to an exceptionally high demand for those two AA's. Since the weight of a cocoon plus worm is about 50% the cocoon and the cocoon is almost entirely the major spider silk proteins, even though the percentage of spider silk protein in KBLB's silks is low (about 15% in MS, probably similar in Big Red) nevertheless the demand for those two essential amino acids would be many times higher than in the production of normal silk (there are 20 EAAs and ordinarily the demand for those two AAs would be many times smaller).
I had previously speculated that the rapid increases in the reproduction rate in MS as it entered commercial level production may have been due to epistatic changes (inheritable changes in the genome due to changes other than in the DNA sequence that could be inherited (nucleotide methylation, etc) as the wild type genes in the MS worms adjusted to the production conditions. That is probably at least partially true. But far more significant may be that with each production generation selection was taking place that removed genetic variations that were unfavorable for the metabolism of far larger amounts than normal of those two amino acids. Since detrimental variations would have resulted in poorer cocoons and with each generation, the poor quality worms would have been discarded in the normal course of ramping up the population to commerical levels, such very rapid adaptive changes would not be at all surprising. (It took only a few generations of such selective breeding to domesticate the fox in a well know Russian experiment.)
It would be expected that the same thing would occur naturally during the ramping up of the Big Red population. I suspect that KBLB has figured out that this is what's been going on and that their acquisition of this testing equipment was intended, at least in part, to assist in improving the selection process. Agriculture has shown that highly consistent results can be achieved this way and there is no reason to expect otherwise with KBLB's worms. Since silkworms have very short generations (about two months) and remarkable and very powerful results can be achieved in just a few generations (as demonstrated by the Russian fox experiment and numerous others) there is every reason to expect KBLB's work with Big Red to be very successful at achieving a very high level of consistency and efficiency of production of it's silks.
This would explain KBLB's need to acquire it's own testing equipment rather than sending fibers to commercial sources for testing as this process would entail a vastly higher number of tests. It may be far cheaper to send it out when doing just a few tests on a new fiber but if the tests are part of a selective breeding process then in house equipment is absolutely essential.
IMHO it's quite reasonable to expect KBLB to be able to achieve consistent production of the highest levels tested in the current line of worms by the time it achieves commercial production of worms. For that reason I would take the highest test results achieved as a good indication of the quality of the end product under production.
As is almost always the case with biotechnology, the development is taking longer than expected and hoped for. But, in this case, it appears to be going well.
Note that unlike other methods for creating high strength fibers, it will not be necessary to build new factories to expand production. Existing sillkworm production facilities may be purchased and used largely as is. The limiting factor on the expansion of production then becomes the rate of expansion of the silkworm population which is up to 100X every two months - not much of a limiting factor. That, plus the far lower costs of production, will be major advantages for KBLB's approach to high tech fiber production.
----------
Note also that the need to modify the testing equipment to accommodate the unusual characteristics of KBLB's fiber explains why so much time passed after KBLB's acquisition of the new testing equipment without getting results. Such modification would not involve mere calibration but would require specially designed alterations. Standard equipment is designed for an expected range of properties and the qualities of KBLB's fiber, (especially the elasticity) would be very far outside the expected ranges. Such modifications would require design by mechanical engineers and testing of the designs to assure required performance. It is not at all unreasonable for this to have taken the time that it has.
As was clear in the PNAS study on Monster SIlk, some processing of the fiber is necessary to do these tests so it is not surprising that it may take a few weeks to do them. (Read the PNAS study and you'll see why it is not at all just a simple matter of attaching fiber to the machine and running the test.)
It would not, IMHO, be at all surprising for KBLB to discover/develop methods of processing to improve the properties of the fiber during this process. It would take little additional effort for the scientists to investigate possible approaches for improvements during this process and I expect they will be doing that.
I would expect within a few weeks of test results on properties of Big Red. For reasons noted above, the high end of the results would be a good indication of what would be achieved under production conditions. The worms producing that result would be selected for during the ramping up of the population to commercial production levels. (just as apparently done (in a less directed manner) during the ramping up of the MS population).
The above is cross posted from another site.
Fair value $7.51 SeeThruEquity initiates coverage of NVVC: fair value estimate of $7.21
SeeThruEquity, a leading independent equity research and corporate access firm focused on smallcap and microcap public companies, today announced that it has initiated coverage on NanoViricides, Inc. (NNVC), a development stage company that is creating special purpose nanomaterials for viral therapy.
“Unlike a typical emerging biotechnology company with one, or maybe two, lead drug candidates with blockbuster market potential, NanoViricides can use their technology to target numerous drug categories. They are initially developing Injectable FluCide™ for hospitalized patients being treated for all influenzas. This represents a $25bn annual market opportunity,” remarked Ajay Tandon, CEO of SeeThruEquity. “We are initiating coverage with a fair value estimate of $7.21 per share.”
The note is available to SeeThruEquity Select Members on SeeThruEquity's website and can be directly accessed here: NNVC Initiation Report. SeeThruEquity is an approved equity research contributor on Thomson First Call, Capital IQ, FactSet, and Zack’s. The note will also be available on these platforms.
Please review important disclosures on our website at www.seethruequity.com.
Reposted to comply with supposed "off topic"
adaption IS evolution. Evolution is, in most cases, a gradual process. An ancestor of fish (not an actual fish) did not adapt to walking on land and breathing air in just a handful of generations. But every small step along the way was a part of evolution.
If selection is conscious and deliberate, it's animal husbandry/controlled breeding etc. If the selection is done by natural forces, it's evolution. KBLB was surprised because (by the way I read it) they hadn't started their planned selective breeding process yet and it just occurred spontaneously by natural selection (i.e.: evolution). Big Red is probably well down much the same road by now, IMHO.
With only a 30% survival rate in each generation, that, in itself, would be a massive pressure of natural selection and have resulted in very rapid evolutionary adaptation. (It's been shown that natural selection forces that cause as little as 5% or less mortality in each generation can cause rapid evolutionary adapation. 70% mortality is a truly massive selection pressure. (Most mammals, for example, could not survive such a high level of pressure for very many generations before dropping below a stable population level. Insects can take it is stride with their very high reproductive rates. (silkworms are actually at the very low end of that scale.)
There is a mechanism for rapid adaption without evolution (but for technical reasons too complex to go into here, it's unlikely to be the explanation here, IMHO): epistatic changes in regulation of genes by methylation of DNA is not a permanent change in the genome (the "letters" of the DNA are unchanged and the methylation can readily reverse). [Lamark was partially right after all. Every time you go to a deeper level in science you find that the previous level was an oversimplification and that categorizations are far more "fuzzy" than represented in the previous levels.] (Our categorizations are crude representations of the way nature really works: nature is not remotely as fussy and tidy as we try to make it out.)
KBLB demonstrates evolution in the lab! (However inadvertently)
------------------
Monster Silk™ Production Surprises Company by Hitting New Milestone
LANSING, Mich.,— Kraig Biocraft Laboratories, Inc. (OTCQB: KBLB) (“Company”), the leading developer of advanced spider silk based fibers, announced today that its genetically engineered spider silk, Monster Silk™, production program has more than doubled in productivity.
During the pilot production program, the yield rate of viable silk cocoons was approximately 30%. At those rates, the cost structure warranted the conversion of the pilot test program to a much larger scale.
The latest reports from the current production ramp up point to a dramatic and unexpected increase in yield to 70%; more than double the output efficiency shown during the pilot phase.
The initial assessment from the Company’s scientific team is that the Monster Silkworms™ are acclimating to the production environment.
“This dramatic boost in productivity was a surprise to us. Our plan was to methodically increase productivity rates over the next 18 months. Our team had drawn up plans that included selective breeding and cross breeding to achieve those goals. To see such a remarkable gain in so short a time was beyond our expectations. The obvious benefits, should these rates continue, would include reduced production costs and reduced ramp up time,” said Company Founder and CEO, Kim K. Thompson.
“With this doubling in efficiency, we need to focus on emplacing the necessary infrastructure to support the increased productivity. As far as challenges go, these are good problems to have. We have already taken action to beef up our production infrastructure to support these larger numbers. The improvement in performance is dramatic; but, with such significant advancements I am cautious until I see that results are consistent over the next few months,” Thompson concluded.
-------------------------------------------------
This confirms my past frequently stated opinion that there was a significant problem in production. Apparently it has been effectively solved (70%, while not optimal is clearly commercially viable IMHO). I am back in today at about what I had exited at.
The most like explanation, IMHO, for the problem (but far from the only possible one) is that spider silk protein consists of almost entirely two amino acids. Silk is almost entirely silk proteins and the major SSP that was added to MS worms makes up most of that and a cocoon is almost 50% of the weight of a worm plus cocoon. So even though MS contains only about 15% SSP, those two amino acids would be needed in far larger amounts in MS worms than normal silkworms (many multiples of the usual amounts). That's enough to put great metabolic stress on the worms and that need is a very plausible explanation for the difficulty in successful cocoon production. The line of worms to which the SSP gene was first added was a wild type (not commercial) and wild types have much higher genetic variation than commercial worms (especially in genes for metabolic pathways important to silk production which would include the pathways handling amino acids present in silk). That genetic variability probably allowed the worms to very rapidly evolve the best combination of genetic variations for handling the much greater required amounts of those two amino acids. Such rapid evolutionary adaption under great environmental stress is well known to occur (demonstrated by a study that showed a rapid change in color from white to black in a moth in England adapting to the darkening in backgrounds in its environment due to high levels of pollution/soot/etc) in just a very few generations. An initial 70% mortality rate is certainly environmental stress of the very highest order, so it would be no surprise that such an adaptation could happen entirely naturally without any intervention whatsoever by the researchers (which would explain why it was "fortuitous")
There remains to be demonstrated that ALL qualities of MS are suitable for a manufactured product. Which is why I established only half my original position. IMHO Howland (Warwick Mills) is a very good bet to accomplish a demonstration of that. We should allow a reasonable period of time for that to happen.
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An interesting question arises with Big Red: IF my conjecture was correct (and even if it wasn't: other genetic adaptations would also need to be replicated in Big Red) then KBLB would need to urgently begin a process to get those genes into Big Red ASAP. (but with as many generations as Big Red has gone thru already the natural process should already be well under way anyway).
What KBLB appears to have done is a scientific demonstration of controlled evolution, however unintended it was! (Notre Dame could probably even get a study published just by sequencing and comparative analysis of the genomes at various stages of development (although it wouldn't benefit KBLB it would be a real scientific accomplishment for Notre Dame. (I believe that the Catholic church has very very belatedly (as usual) acknowledged the reality of evolution so it shouldn't be a problem for them and would be a real feather in their cap. (And although the study results would not be useful to KBLB directly, the sequencing data obtained as part of it would be highly useful to KBLB. And ND should be able to find grant money to do it with, if they are so inclined. <<<<<< Just a suggestion. HINT (free sequencing!)
This PR is missing the critical word "ARRAY".
Lacking that all it announces is the achievement of ISOLATED PIXELS or IR detectors. It's all very lovely that these PIXELS have MWIR and LWIR detection in the same PIXEL.
But that's really only signficant IF and ONLY if these pixels can be assembled into a functioning ARRAY which is a vastly more challenging project.
What they've done here is the equivalent of sending a rocket into the next county when the goal is to send one to the moon.
Opel Technologies (Opps, POET Technologies, is that this year's name?) has a long history of intentionally misleading PRs, notably one carefully worded to SOUND like a milestone had been achieved without ever actually explicitly stating it - and for good reason - when many investors asked for clarification, was it or was it not the milestone? POET (then Opel) refused to answer and it turned out IT WAS NOT. And then there was the outright lie years ago at the time of the Pellingrino report that POET (then Opel whatever (went thru several name changes with "Opel" in it)) had "validated all components" and would supposedly have a functioning fully integrated chip in a few months. Turned out they had validated only ONE component and YEARS later are still many milestones away from a fully integrated chip.
This PR is yet another example of such calculated deception: It is very carefully crafted to give the IMPRESSION that it is an IR detection ARRAY, but it NEVER EXPLICITLY STATES THAT, because it can't because it IS NOT AN ARRAY, IT IS ONLY A PIXEL.
Had it actually been an array of course they would have made that very clear and the SP would have doubled or tripled because the array IN AND OF ITSELF would be a very valuable product. And had it been an array a deal with BAE would have been either announced PRIOR to this PR or simultaneously with it.
The MARKET knows it's a very minor event. BUt as usual with this stock there are traders hyping it to the skies and the SP will float on air for awhile and then crash as always.
NOTE ESPECIALLY:
"Integrated optoelectronic advantages. The devices provides for the practical integration, for the first time, of the optical detector with the electronic transistor readout and signal-processing circuits. Thus, high-density, single-chip focal-plane arrays are possible using front-side imaging, without resorting to wafer thinning. "
It does not say that they have DONE it. It says it IS POSSIBLE.
They've done a PIXEL which means it's POSSIBLE to make an array of them IF you can produce them small enough and with a low enough error rate that there are not too many missing pixels.
The error rate is the really BIG challenge and always has been due to the very high number of layers.
THE PR IS PURE HYPE. Carefully crafted to create the impression of something that is not true (as with some previous POET releases (only it wasn't POET then but one of many previous names) THis kind of nonsense is exactly why they've needed so many name changes IMHO.
Today's PR is lacking one critical word whose absence destroys the significance of the PR:
ARRAY
As it reads what was accomplished may well be only isolated pixels of IR detectors which was never the real challenge.
The HARD part is building an ARRAY of the devices. Isolated pixels only tell you that there is IR in the vicinity. You have to have an ARRAY to located it.
To build an ARRAY you have to have a very low ERROR RATE so that there are not too many missing pixels in the arrary.
This is the same kind of garbage IMHO that POET (then going by one of its MANY previous names (4 name changes in as many years) pulled when it stated years ago that it had validated ALL components (in fact only ONE) and that it would have a fully integrated chip within months (over three years ago).
This company has NO credibility. It's boards are mostly ones like agoracom.com where moderators have total control and can delete posts and posters arbitrarily with no oversight or appeal whatsoever.
Just as it did years ago, from 0.40's to 1.80 and over on pure hype (the Pellingrino report which was based on the ASSUMPTION that the technology WORKED plus the LIE that they'd already validated all the compontent (many of which YEARS later have still to be validated).
The SP will probably spike and then crash big time yet again. The problem, as always is getting caught in the spike.