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Re: jburby777 post# 29652

Thursday, 09/01/2011 11:11:12 AM

Thursday, September 01, 2011 11:11:12 AM

Post# of 285134
At first glance that seemed overoptimistic even to me as it would mean a market cap of $35-40 billion dollars given that there are more than 500 million shares out. But upon closer examination it appears pretty reasonable to me.

There are many immediate possible uses of spider silk as it is. Note that other cases would require adjusting the spider silks elasticity and other properties (as a replacement for Kevlar and similar fibers etc.) (in some uses elasticity is not desirable). But with the platform worm it could take only 8 months to a year to make the desired adjustments and breed the worms up to production levels.

Also those uses will be for very high value products, there will be no competition on the market and the production costs will be very low (same as silk production plus the one-time low cost of making the genetic modifications*1) and that means an exceptionally high profit margin. And that is in a number of very large markets.

And things can move very quickly because standard silk manufacturing facilities already exist and can be used merely by switching out the worms. Plus most of the products (except medical uses) will not need any regulatory approval for release of genetically modified organisms (silkworms cannot survive in the wild even if accidentally released) nor any FDA approvals nor any food testing.

Early growth could be quite explosive. And, once the materials were on the market and readily available many new uses would be found. (Consider the laser for example. When it was developed it was thought that weapons would be about the only application. Now they are used in many hundreds of widely varyiing products from CD players, to guides for circular saws, to levelers and transits and very many more.

So upon reflection your projection does appear to be realistic assuming things go well.

It's really good to know that KBLB is immune to hostile takeover because of Kim's huge number of "voting only" shares. Otherwise I would consider that a very serious risk.

This could be one of those stocks where you sell very few shares and keep most of them, collect the dividends and pass them on to your heirs. Competition will inevitably arise but until other methods of genetic modification equal to zinc fingers are developed (at LEAST 5 to 10 years away) KBLB will be very dominant in the sector (only a few spider silk protein "analogues" competing at the very low range of the market for low tech uses) and will earn the money to keep advancing to maintain it's lead.

I originally invested twice as much money as I planned to leave in, planning to take out half after pure spider silk was achieved. Then I decided to wait for the platform worm. Now I am reconsidering whether I want to just wait for the dividends.

Companies with technologies that have great value and meet important needs that cannot be met by other means survive even in very bad times. IMHO it is realistic to say that the potential risks, once pure spider silk and/or the platform worm have been demonstrated, are almost all just of setbacks and delays which are possible with any biotechnology.
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