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ATTN: Quiver
I just saw your PMs (I am bad at navigating websites so i didnt realize I had any). Thanks for the info, i would have replied via PM, but that is a subscriber-only feature lol.
I read the thing on the Dragonfly - It is a decent system, in my opinion. I just dont think it is on the same level, in terms of being ground-breaking, as M-BAND and EasyCheck could be. and I know of other technologies that could make Dragonfly obsolete in the very near future. For example, xMAP technology potentially can perform 100+ tests in 1 reaction (Dragonfly is 6 tests over 3 reactions) Dragonfly would have been excellent 6 years ago, in my opinion. Now, i think it's going towards nothing special. I do hope there will be a market for it, but I think our big guns are MBAND and EasyCheck.
and of course I have bought into the company. was planning on buying more (even doubling my current position) until this news of the possible R/S, which I see as very likely to happen. If the R/S does happen, the reward-to-risk ratio plummets, so I'm not sure what to do at the moment and am just going to wait for more news.
The current situation is ideal for us small investors - a low pps that is relatively stable with little to go downwards; and yet the company has technology that could potentially make the pps skyrocket. the R/S, especially 25 to 1, will change that.
not sure about the specifics of the debate between you and robsct, but i wish all of his claims turn out to be right. i'm skeptical of many of his absolute claims, but i would be more than happy if he is right on all of them
i myself dont plan on selling. but i hope youre right and it works out in the end - works out for us
i can see this company going places with its technology - but who's really going to benefit in the end?
i agree with many posters here. there's a good chance theyre looking to screw us, the small investors. even a 1-for-10 reverse split damns us, as the float goes from being approx 70% of authorized shares to approx 7%....
I think they are aiming real big...and in order to get the resources and spport to do so they are "sacrificing" us so that bigger money can move in.
right now the big guns are limited in the amount of money they can invest due to small fries like us having and holding tightly onto a lot of the float, which already constitutes 70% of authorized shares. so if a company wants to invest 1 mil+ into psid, it really cant
us holding onto shares and continually accumulating may have backfired
yea damn this filing is dated and everything too
thanks for the link
man wtf
i come on here to find talks of a massive 10:1 - 25:1 reverse split?
can somebody post the links of this shady news? I cant find them thanks
Nice find, Quver.
Personally, i see both potentially good and bad aspects of this.
I'll start with the potentially troubling - the description for M-BAND presentation is literally the word-for-word abstract of the 2011 article i found on M-BAND. Does this mean that they are at the same progress mark as they were in 2011? Maybe, maybe not. Also, does this mean they are worried about landing the DHS contract (which is why they want to get their name out there)? maybe, maybe not. The thing is, pretty much anybody with a publication can sign up for these conferences and present.
The things i like about this are 1) everything i wrote above is purely speculation, meaning it might be wrong 2) M0BAND is trying to get its name out there.
I also agree 100% with colocowboy. Some of the posters are ridiculous and downright blindly fanatical when it comes to PSID lol.
I dont think that charting and technical analysis and all that really matter here. I dont even think it would matter if it dropped to 1 cent now. In fact, I like that it stays cheap longer (so i can add more for cheaper lol)
I think that this is the type of stock not to be traded, but invested in. By this I mean that once it starts to rain, it will pour.
sure you can trade with this stock, and come off with solid 15% profits and such once in a while. But this is the type of stock to rocket when it's time to rocket, not steadily increase as the result of proper management, etc.
Zero to Hero, brothas
all this is in my opinion lol
the biggest, and most potentilly lucrative might of them all haha
sounds good
that might mean PSID might have much bigger plans for easy check
oh ok
anyways, let's see what today brings us
yea, i hope it is a nice cherry on top of everything haha
what on earth are you talking about lol...
i was just responding to someone's post on telecare product.
what PSID hate do I spew? what are you talking about few months back? lol
i was just having a discussion with greasyfingers about our product (GlucoMeter) vs that of a competitor. I got confused, though, since PSID decided to name the product after the actual class of products (anything that measures glucose is known as a glucometer). and according to the research greasyfingers did, the telecare product is doing better. it doesnt even matter to me, though, since i invested in psid for its other products, namely those in the biodefense sector and the easy check.
believe me, i can tell that this is a pro-psid board, so much so that one might be gunned down for posting the facts or more cautious opinions.
oh...well that makes even more sense. thanks man
yea, i'd agree with you for sure then
I see what you were trying to say. Telecare's product is comparable to our iGlucose system, not our glucometer (easy check)
I thought you were comparing Telecare to Easy Check, not iGlucose.
By the way, Telecare's diabetes device is not non-invasive, it still needs blood like the current standared glucometers do.
It may have an advantage over iGlucose, but its target is not really Easy Check.
and yea, Easy Check isnt FDA approved yet (i said if).
but yea i get what youre saying and agree with you - iGlucose isnt exactly our strongest product at the moment as far as i can tell.
yea i just realized that after looking at the system more lol
makes sense
How is this telecare device similar to our product?
The whole point of our product is that it is non-invasive...meaning no drop of blood is required. I looked over that video, and it seems that Telecare product needs blood...unless i am missing something
That could be helpful i guess. Very interesting. Although many factors woudl be unknown, it could give physicians a general idea of the blood glucose level patterns of an individual throughout a given period of time if i'm understanding this correctly
So Easy Check does have a disposable aspect? Hmmm...seems that I have to up my DD for Easy Check haha
Easy Check is a potential gold mine, with or without iGlucose (I am not even sure what iGlucose exactly does, to tell the truth).
Easy Check will enter the market at the patient-level and EMS-level, in my opinion.
There is a huge scramble for non-invasive glucose meters. There are many companies out there exploring a variety of options and technologies in attempts to make one that is fast, simple, and harmless.
If Easy Check becomes FDA approved, i'd say it would bring more money than even M-BAND. Like I said before, though, that's a big if.
As was pointed out earlier, there are also the politics at play here. Pharmaceutical companies make killings off of the refills for their current glucometers. There isnt anything similar to this in the Easy Check system (since it is a one-time buy). You can bet your PSID shares that there will be plenty of behind-the-scene protest and under-the-table payoffs by those who stand to lose profits in the diabetes industry
if the easy check gets FDA approval, consider ourselves millionaires
that's a big if though. I think it's reasonable that you were focusing more on the more immediate prospect of M-BAND.
Nice explanation man.
I, for one, am quite weak when it comes to chart analysis and whatnot, and this validated some of my thoughts.
A) those arent "theoretical papers", they are real tests
B) we really dont know anything about NG's machine, that it could do 20 (or more) is nothing more than a major assumption
C) M-BAND is not scanning for 70 pathogens as far as we know...it has the capability to support 70 DNA/RNA targets
D) I truly hope youre right in your interpretation of CEO's statements.
In any case, since I'm not actually providing new DD, and simply clarifying, to you, what i've been saying in my previous posts, I am going to take Quiver's advice and sit back and watch unless I come across anything new.
dont see a reason to get worked up over someone saying that theyre going to buy a bunch of shares. I'd think that that's actually good for our company, no?
@robsct
I guess you were referring to me regarding the comment about the "armchair experts" lol. I don't know why you would say that, since I hoped to make it clear that I am not a PhD-level expert in this field and do not know the specifics of the actual systems to be used in the BioWatch Gen 3 testing.
However, I didn't pull those bits about xMAP technology out of nowhere. I may not be an expert, but I do have background in molecular biology laboratory techniques. The xMAP technology is no push-over, at least in a clinical/laboratory setting. Here is some actual literature regarding xMAP:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22852821
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3286996/
These are just two of the many scientific articles detailing the capabilities of the xMAP in general. However, like I said, there is far more to having a successful BioWatch Gen3 system than having a good laboratory technique such as xMAP. Implementation is of utmost importance. I just wanted to point out that the potential is there. it just is a matter of how it is integrated into a complete system (like how our qPCR and immunoassay are finely implemented into the M-BAND unit). In fact, I even pointed out before how NG put 6-20+ rather than 100+ on their brochure - that could be a sign that theyre having trouble maximizing the effectiveness of xMAP in a system that has to meet the demanding requirements of BioWatch 3. who knows
I just thought that it was important to us, as invetors, to know what we could be up against. the amount of information required to bring different people to the same level of conviction varies from person to person.
I much agree with you man. It aint over till the fat lady sings. Anything can happen in the meantime, especially when we do not know the full specifics for any of the products and their implementation, including ours. There are so many factors that the future has yet to reveal
I thought I would be content with my 00k shares, but the last few posts make me feel like getting a bit more lol
I like the sounds of the last two posts haha
I see, thanks for the info.
Regarding NG entering a losing battle, I agree. Especially after a giant rival like Boeing stepping in on our side. The question remains, though, is whether or not they would be entering a losing battle. I can't figure out how I should view NG's relative quietness regarding the whole BioWatch Gen 3. Are they giving up on it for now? Are they simply not talking a lot about it since it's not their main scope of interest? Or are they not showing all of their cards and keeping their aces in the hole to be shown during the actual testing?
I wish it were as simple as this, then we'd have a guaranteed contract.
qPCR is the preferred method for validation...validation in a laboratory experiment with no time constraints, absolute target sequences, and in a controlled environment.
BioWatch Gen 3 is not in a controlled experiment taking place in the lab. It is in the wide open real-world setting - in major metropolitan areas in which there will be varying concentrations of sample, contamination in the sample (tons of pollution, etc), and possible genetic variation/interference. This makes the task more difficult (not only for our system, but for any system attempting to fulfill the role needed in BioWatch gen 3).
This is why you cant go based on what is useful in a completely different setting, and used in differnt ways.
Another very important aspect is to take into account various strains and newly discovered threats. If there is one aspect xMAP could have an advantage, I think it is this one. To account for different target biothreats, PCR relies on something known as multiplexing (combined with TaqMan dyes). Multiplexing allows for more tests to be run from one sample, but it can get tricky depending on how many you want to use. xMAP's defining characteristic is that it can easily test for 100+ biothreats just from one sample, since its architecture allows for that. Otherwise, qPCR generally is slightly more sensitive, slightly more specific, and slightly faster per assay. It probably is cheaper too (not sure). These are all theoretical regarding teh xMAP (since it is a not as well established like qPCR). It also depends a lot on the actual system and ability to function in real-world conditions.
But, like I said, we havent heard anything at all recently from NG, while our CEO has made some very positive statements (and NG's direct competitor, Boeing, allied with us). I hope that these are signs that NG has given up the fight for now if they do not think that their technology is ready yet.
Maybe somebody should give NG a call and ask what their plans are for biowatch gen 3 haha
yea I saw the list of interested vendors already. But does you name have to be on this list for you to take part? I wasnt sure about that part. Does anybody know if you can not have your name on the list and still send in a draft proposal?
That's why i was wondering if, by tomorrow, we would be be able to know who exactly sent in a proposal, regardless of whether they are on the list or not (since NG isnt on the list of interested vendors at the moment)
@Quiver
yea ive seen those claims regarding dragonfly. It says that it can test for 6 organisms at once, right? The thing about xMAP is that I think it can easily test for 100+ organisms at once...at least theoretically, which is why I think it has a bright future (and hence why it got the fundng for a prototype device). Dragonfly still is viable though of course, especially at the present. I'm sure the system can be expanded to include more biothreats if necessary (will be much harder to reach 100 tests with current multiplexing systems though). It probably is signifcantly cheaper at the moment as well. I was just trying to point out that xMAP probably has a very bright future in certain, more clinically-oriented, fields
Regarding TaqMan PCR - TaqMan is nothing more than the probes used at the end of the qPCR (it is a good thing though - TaqMan is very reliable). The actual method being used is real-time PCR (aka qPCR). it seems that our system is holding up well to the DHS standards. The question is how will it hold up to possible competitor. This is why I am very anxious about what NG will bring to the table, if anything at all. As long as they are in the running, I cant sit easy and think we have an easy victory.
does anyone know if tomorrow (or ever) we will know all of the interested vendors?
there should be a way for us tax-paying citizens to see who is trying to earn the billions of tax money right ?
I am no expert in the field (I'm no scientist) and I dont know a lot of the small details. However I do understand a lot of the basics.
In my opinion, xMAP (and luminex's other system, xTAG), are superiour, at least in potential, to dragonfly system for the purpose of use in clinical setting. As far as I can tell, and based on many publications, xMAP is not a dead end at all.
Like I said, this is all based on my non-expert understanding of all of this. This also doesnt mean that whatever technology dragonfly uses will be useless unless some other technology completely eclipses it in every aspect. And xMAP doesnt seem to be the be-all-end-all type of thing to do that. It simply fills the role of intermediate density testing very well as far as i can tell
Here is the one I found on M-BAND
http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=1270125
Yeah, i was referring to the xMAP system regarding the articles up till 2010.
And i'll try to keep the essays coming then haha
Also, here is a big article I found on the xMAP systems up till around 2009
https://e-reports-ext.llnl.gov/pdf/369094.pdf
I think it is from this article that the NG brochure gets a lot of its stats from. This article also outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the machine at that time (high cost, lesser sensitivity than qPCR were big weaknesses)
The other articles I cannot remember from the top of my head - i had to dig pretty deep to get some of them. Will post later.
thanks guys. Those included my own, personal interpretations on top of facts. Like I said, I will post the links to various sources I found asap when i can get access to them (some are PDFs though, not sure how i'll post them here)
and no need to be sorry, in my opinon, madmax. I, for one, welcome what others say are "negative energy" posts lol. I believe in questioning everything in an effort to come to a conclusion that is beyond reasonable doubt. You are right in that while such technology doesnt correlate to M-BAND, it does correlate to Dragonfly. I havent done much research on dragonfly, but to be honest, I think that Dragonfly is outmatched, or at least will be in the future, by luminex in that area. Luminex is a new technology with a lot of potential in that area, while dragonfly employs older, more traditional technology. Also, Luminex inherently supports immunological targets (as well as enzyme activity and protein expression) for idenfification. Our M-BAND system implements an immunoassay on top of qPCR to account for this. I don't think dragonfly does though. The difference between luminex and dragonfly (and even M-BAND) is that luminex is actually the developer of an entirely new technique, while dragonfly simply implements a standard older-one in a certain system.
No company, especially a small one like PositiveID, can win all contracts for all their products. I think this is why we pretty much only hear on M-BAND nowadays - that is our immediate goal. If you try to chase two rabbits, youll lose them both (especially when your company doesnt have the same resources as others do). It seems we are making progress with our biodefense goal too. I'd just like to hear more from both our company, and even NG/whoever is in charge of the xMAP system. There seems to be so little information on the details.
A cutting edge technology that we do have leverage in is the easy check. Non-invasive breath glucose monitoring of high quality would be ground-breaking. even a small amount of market penetration in the diabetes market would lead to billions of dollars in the US alone. if, and that's a big if, it succeeds, that's another massive opportunity right there. many companies are chasing this goal of non-invasive measuring, and there are a wide variety of different techniques. But, like I said, even if we capture a small portion of market, it's money in the bank lol
@madmax
I have done extensive research on Luminex systems. Yes, they are quite advanced when it comes to clinical detection, which is what I mentioned in my earlier post. I said that they have a huge future ahead of them in this regard.
However, what the BioWatch Gen 3 is is completely different from what Luminex systems have been used for so far. Your post about detecting pathogens inside the host and monitoring for disease spread is completely different than monitoring and detecting the environment (essentially air detection).
M-BAND is not a clinical device, it is environmental. Two completely different roles to fill. It seems like now Luminex system has ventured into biodefense, too, as seen in their bids in BioWatch. However, it is somewhat of a fallacy to use their track record in a different scope to determine their virtues in another.
thanks for the welcome, Quiver. Your posts are always among the most informative.
I do have a bit of experience and knowledge of PCR methods (medical school only though - no heavy lab work with them)
qPCR (real-time PCR) is, to my knowledge, a very effective and tried-and-true method. However, BioWatch Gen-3 isnt about tried-and-true systems, it's about future systems that can eclipse whatever's out there right now. This is why M-BAND system is not merely any old qPCR system - it is a highly developed one that seems to be honed to pinnacle levels regarding biodefense. What I mean is that M-BAND involves taking the qPCR technique and integrating into a platform designed for pathogen and biothreat agent identification in the real environment (as opposed to lab settings). This is key right here - M-BANDs success, in my opinion, will be heavily determined by not only how well it functions in the real-world environment with regards to the DHS, but also compared to the xMAP platform.
This brings us to the xMAP system. This technology is no push-over. In my opinion, it has huge potential in the future, especially in a more clinical setting (testing samples from a patient, etc). Its biggest strength is its ability to perform 100+ tests on one sample (this is what is meant by its relatively high-throughput) while maintaining reproducibility in its results. This is why that other guy in the Luminex forum said that it's "easier to add more pathogens" in the luminex systems. However, the same thing goes for xMAP system - it must be able to perform in the field. This is why I think that NG's brochure only has it at 6-20+, and not straight-up 100+. So, this again brings us back to testing results.
Besides xMAP's more efficient scalability, I am worried about some other things. First of all, the xMAP systems (at least up until 2010), have been developed in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which is a quite the decorated lab. The program is also in collaboration with NG and Luminex, two world-class companies. Also, based on my DD, it seems that their systems (not sure if it's their latest model or their older ones) have been lauded by the government to some extent, and even chosen to be the systems used in "BioWatch 2.5".
However, there are also a few thing's I've noticed that may tip the balance towards our side. First of all, all of the publications, literature, articles, etc regarding the xMAP-based system have basically come to a halt at approximately 2010. I was able to find many articles (scientific literature) and presentations about the system with dates preceding the end of 2010. After that, it stopped. Additionally, i don't see any evidence of LLN Laboratory being the one to further develop the system. In fact, the name on the brochure, "NG-ADS" is different from its original LLNL name, "APDS-150, APDS-300, etc" (it had different models). This leads me to believe that either LLNL is no longer involved, or NG acquired full rights to sell it. If the former, then it is possible that NG has no clue what it's doing (especially because some of the vague stats on the NG brochure come directly from some old LLNL literature from 2009). This might be why Boeing recently decided to back PSID, since it saw its competitor recently floundering. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that based on my DD, I have found tons of articles and presentations lauding the achievements and future of the system up until around 2010/2011, after which I cant find anything of nearly the same substance.
Furthermore, I found an abstract of a publication regarding M-BAND (didn't read full article since you have to pay for it lol). This article was dated more recently (2011). This article spoke of positive results, including absolutely no false positives when testing with both in-house samples and unknown random samples provided by DHS. Based on my DD, it seems plausible to me that while luminex system has been successful up till recently, the tables may have turned and M-BAND seems to be in the lead - that is, of course, unless everybody involved in the luminex system is keeping their information top secret or something.
Anyways, I can type essays on what I think lol, but I'll just leave it at that for now unless you guys would like to hear more. I will post all of the articles i found later on, since I do not have the links/pdfs with me at the moment.
But anyways, while M-BAND might pass all the DHS test requirements, that doesnt mean it guarantee win the contract (since it has to also beat competitors). I, for one, am not going to say this will be a KO. I think it will come down to a decision unless NG-ADS doesnt even send in a draft/plan on competing lol. If they are competing for it, we are going up against a cutting edge technology backed by well-established entities.
Tomorrow is the deadline for the draft proposal, right? I hope we will know, by tomorrow, if NG is bidding for the contract. I dont think that theyve said anything recently about it, right? I cannot imagine why they would not, unless a DHS contract like this is not important to a compay specializing mainly in aerospace and weapon systems.
what's good guys
Ive been following this forum for a little over a month and have to thank you all for the information and insight. I figured that id make an account too.
Just to clarify something - TaqMan PCR alone does not have an advantage over xMap, as far as I can tell, with regards to the Biowatch program. TaqMan may be a superiour way of validating results obtained from assays, but it is not up-to-par with xMAP in terms of high through-put capabilities. This is why on PSIDs site, it says that it is used in conjunction with multiplexing.
Whether or not that this combination has the edge over xMAP is the question.
In my opinion, the xMAP technology is theoretically better. However, I can't find enough data to see if it is practically better/technologically possible at the moment. This is why a well-implemented combination system of PSID could be better, especially in the near future, than a theoretically-better, but poorly implemented/incomplete technology.
We will just have to wait and see. My guess is that both companies will get the contract. One can never be "too safe", anyways, in my opinion. The government should take the greatest measures to ensure safety, and this can be done by using two different systems to increase specificity (since they both have their own strengths)
This is what I think, at least.