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XMRV stock picks . . .

pictureofhealth

XMRV - L'Agent du Jour
Messages
534
Location
Europe
Excellent find - thanks Elisa!!

This is the kind of article we might email to the press (especially in the UK). It gives an entirely new slant on ME/CFS and may jolt the UK newspapers out of their complacency - it shows how the rest of the world, outside the arena of medicine and science, outside the tiny world of the UK psychiatrists for eg - is actually responding to the XMRV etc news - ie in the real world!
 

xrayspex

Senior Member
Messages
1,111
Location
u.s.a.
Wow. this makes things very real doesn't it, from another angle.

ironically I was going to buy some of that stock last week because of this thread and other things came up that distracted me and then got flared up from a dental thing......not that i have a lot of money to spare but thought it would be interesting to put a little down at least, now I wonder if missed the best window of opportunity.
 

pictureofhealth

XMRV - L'Agent du Jour
Messages
534
Location
Europe
Even if only every ME patient on this board invested in a few shares, would that be enough to start an upward trend?
If interest in this stock started to rise hugely all of a sudden, that would catch the attention of the financial & news markets. Perhaps investors are awaiting the outcome of the XMRV Conference this coming week - to know if it will be a good bet.
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
I was going to suggest CERS as a very interesting stock too! Their system has just been accepted nationwide in Switzerland and will be installed in all their blood centres.

They are still in negative earnings so it is impossible to do any normal valuation on the company, to decide if it is cheap or expensive at this stage. Valuing it against assets would also be meaningless as its value is the technology not the tangible assets.

Since only 4 percent of the population seem to be XMRV carriers then it should be easy to screen donors and find enough who are XMRV negative. In this scenario, it then becomes a contest between CERS Intercept system to clean up blood, and a diagnostic test to screen out the infected potential donors - which is cheaper?
And all this is based on the premise, of course, that eventually the government decides that XMRV really does cause dreaful enough diseases to be taken seriously. At this stage, the company certainly doesn't seem to regard XMRV as a potential driver of its profits. Instead, its website talks about the current strong rise/dissemination of dengue fever and other already well known illnesses.

One last problem - the stock could be utterly fantastic etc but the market capitalisation is so tiny that it would be a bit of a nightmare to find stock to buy. Most likely, the people who already hold this company's shares think it is a great long term bet and are intending to keep hold of it.
 

xrayspex

Senior Member
Messages
1,111
Location
u.s.a.
so may be good time to short UNUM? not that I have ever shorted anything but open to learning.....
 

mojoey

Senior Member
Messages
1,213
There are about 39 million shares outstanding, which isn't very much, nor is the trading volume of 155k, but the activity is there. Depending on the bid-ask ratio (premium you pay for the stock over the market price), finding stock to buy shouldn't be a huge problem though. After all, anyone that buys this stock is buying it on speculation to pop, and not based on fundamentals, so you're not gonna mind paying a few extra cents to play. This company has terrible fundamentals (it's not profitable) and faces headwinds for FDA approval in the states. It's been 7 years since it's last clinical trial in the US. However, if it achieves FDA approval in the states, look for it to spread like wildfire in other countries where it has presence like Europe and Asia.

I would advise people not spend their last dollars on this stock or hemipherx. You should only buy this stock if you don't mind losing your entire amount invested, meaning it should be considered a lottery ticket and not a meal ticket.
 

mojoey

Senior Member
Messages
1,213
I would definitely not bet against insurance companies. There is so much behind the scenes that we don't know about, and if there's one thing insurance companies know how to do, it's make money. They're already in the toilet because of uncertainty on healthcare regulation, with several huge insurance companies trading below book value as we speak, so there may not be much room to plummet.

Buffet lost a lot of money on insurance on one occasion (he's well-known for being an insurance guru, so that's a cornerstone of his portfolio), and that was Katrina. Trust me, recognition for CFS will be no katrina. There will be no mass payout in a short amount of time. At best it will be a slow process even if it involves huge expenses through lawsuits and payouts, and companies will have time to adjust their premiums.
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Xray,
Not wanting to take undue credit, it wasn't me that posted the article link on CERS.

Anyway, the journalist who wrote it owns shares in CERS so, if he can get others increasing demand for CERS, it will boost the value of his shareholding. He may also believe it is a really good investment, of course...

Also Mojoey is right, shorting insurance shares never pays off.

FInally, Mojoey made the very important point about FDA approval. Applying for review by the FDS costs truly heart-stopping amounts of money and a company with a negative bottom line could never find the cash. They need to make it big in Europe before they can even think about the US market.
 

Recovery Soon

Senior Member
Messages
380
WPI is working with CERUS, and issued a joint press release in May. That would seem to give them some credibility, especially as WPI becomes more influential.

If the FDA announces contamination at the conference- what then?

Are there any other companies who cleanse the Blood Supply?
 

Rrrr

Senior Member
Messages
1,591
WPI is working with CERUS, and issued a joint press release in May. That would seem to give them some credibility, especially as WPI becomes more influential.

If the FDA announces contamination at the conference- what then?

Are there any other companies who cleanse the Blood Supply?

that is my question: are there other companies that clean the blood supply, and i think the answer is Abbott, right? but it is CERUS that worked with WPI to clean the blood of xmrv, and they were successful. right?
 

Recovery Soon

Senior Member
Messages
380
that is my question: are there other companies that clean the blood supply, and i think the answer is Abbott, right? but it is CERUS that worked with WPI to clean the blood of xmrv, and they were successful. right?


Whittemore Peterson Institute and Cerus Confirm Inactivation of XMRV by the
INTERCEPT Blood System
- Virus linked to chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer is viewed as a blood transfusion
risk -
CONCORD, California and RENO, Nevada--(BUSINESS WIRE) May 18, 2010-- The
Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI) and Cerus Corporation
(NASDAQ:CERS) announced positive results from a study demonstrating the efficacy of the
INTERCEPT Blood System to inactivate XMRV, a human retrovirus, in donated platelet
components. After sample platelet components were inoculated with XMRV, the infected blood
components were treated with INTERCEPT, a system that inactivates pathogens in donated
blood. Following treatment, no evidence of infectious XMRV was detected in blood samples.
The study results have been submitted for presentation at the AABB Annual Meeting in October.
XMRV is a retrovirus that has recently been linked to prostate cancer and myalgic
encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Other retroviruses, such as HIV and
HTLV-1, are known to cause cancer and immune deficiencies. Studies by WPI researchers and
collaborators have confirmed that infectious XMRV can be found in human blood cells and that
the virus is transmitted through body fluids.
In the joint study conducted by WPI and Cerus, blood samples were evaluated in a validated
virus culture test, which allows sensitive detection of XMRV particles that are capable of
reproducing. Cerus' INTERCEPT Blood System inactivates pathogens by crosslinking their
DNA or RNA, thereby blocking replication and preventing subsequent transmission of infection.
INTERCEPT has previously been demonstrated to inactivate high levels of both HIV and HTLV.
Cerus and WPI decided to collaborate on inactivation studies for XMRV in order to characterize
the treatment's efficacy against this newly recognized human retrovirus.
While research is ongoing regarding the prevalence and disease association of the virus,
concern for potential transfusion transmission of XMRV has already led blood centers in
Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand to ban donations from blood donors
with ME/CFS. Earlier this week, the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Advisory Committee of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services voted unanimously to recommend that U.S. blood
centers also defer donors with diagnosed ME/CFS.
"As XMRV is a human retrovirus like HIV, one immediately wonders about the possibility for
transfusion transmission of XMRV," said Dr. Judy Mikovits, director of research at WPI. "We
chose to work with Cerus on this joint study because developing prevention strategies for
XMRV-linked neuro-immune diseases is an important element of the WPI's mission."
"Due to its leadership in the discovery and characterization of XMRV, WPI is an ideal partner to
confirm the efficacy of our treatment process," added Lily Lin, vice president of global scientific
affairs for Cerus. "Emerging pathogens such as XMRV are a particular challenge for blood
transfusion services and highlight a weakness in the current blood banking system."

The INTERCEPT systems for platelets and plasma are used by over 40 blood centers in
Europe, Russia and the Middle East. The INTERCEPT Blood System is not yet approved for
use in the United States.
 

xrayspex

Senior Member
Messages
1,111
Location
u.s.a.
Do any of you know (think you know) the best way to analyze a stock? It used to be the p/e was a big part but it seems like that became a joke during the tech bubble.
I love Michael Lewis' writing btw, I wonder what the next market ponzi scheme is? Seems like our market has been propped up one after the other for years, not sure if its played itself out.
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi Xray,

The p/e ratio is a handy ratio as a rough and dirty but hasn't been ragarded as anything more than this in fianancial analysis for many decades. You need to look at a whole raft of ratios to get a reasonable picture.

To compare two companies in different countries you need to strip out the differential tax rates. You also need to remove the asset depreciation and amortisation figures which are arbitrary numbers and vary according to the national accounting standards being used. You take the bottom line, subtract these numbers, and call is EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation).
Also, you need to consider whether you are looking at a company with lots of equity (strongly financed) or lots of debt (vulnerable in a downturn, cash may suddenly become hard for them to obtain), so you compare the EBITDA not with the equity price, which completely ignores debt, but with the enterprise value, which is the equity and debt financiang added together (i.e. the balance sheet total). This gives you a measure of how successfully the company is using ALL its financing, not only its equity financing. (This is why you strip out the interest payments in EBITDA, otherwise you are putting the debt financing in twice.)
Thus you now have a new ratio: EV / EBITDA.
Since the nineties this has been regarded as the new "quick and dirty" ratio.

In some industries you need to look at cash flow ratios instead, as the profit and loss statement is irrelevant. These are established "cash cows" like telephony companies where the rate of income is steady and predictable and its all about cash flowing steadily in.
With a new company you simply look at the talents/experience of the management and the uniqueness of the business proposition because they won't have any useful numbers to analyse. The investment banks manage these investments in venture capital teams, separate from the regular equity analysis teams. They put large investments into new companies. Statistically three in four go bust, and the one big success pays for the losses on the other three, and turns a profit.
With a company in "stellar" growth, the EBITDA ratio and the P/E can be useful but you often need to forecast them for at least five years ahead to see the growth: Next year's PE could be 30 times, but with stellar growth, a PE, five years out, of 3 times could make the stock look like much more of a good buy. Professional analysts can visit the company, walk around and interrogate the CFO and CEO for a day at a time, so they will always have much more info than a member of the public. Sometimes the accounts look good but you can sense that the workers are all slackers and, most importantly, hate their jobs, and sooner or later this does damage company performance.

In the current financial collapse, analysts have realised that you can hide a multitude of disasters on your profit and loss statement. To get to the truth you need to see the cash flow statement. So nowadays the price to cash flow ratios are given much more importance than they used to be. One is called the Acid test and is the fundamental measure of solvency.
All of the main ratios are explained in a very good book called "How to Read the Financial Pages" which I am sure you'd find on Amazon. Its a very readable book so worth buying if you want to learn a bit more.

If you look at Moodys or Standard & Poors websites you'll find their solvency ratings for larger companies you may be interested in. These look at the past not the future so are not telling everything, but they are important in this type of economic climate.

Also, when you look at the stock price, always download a chart with volume of trades along the bottom (bar chart) because, if you have a lot of price volatility on small trades, it is less important. If you have a whopping volume moving the price on one day, it likely means that one of the huge Fund Managers has decided to take a position or wind up their position in that stock, which means you should take serious notice and be aware that you may have missed the boat in terms of getting in early and scoring a bargain.

I was a professional equity analyst (sell side) with Schroders and Salamon Smith Barney for ten years so if I haven't already bored you to tears and you want to ask more, go ahead!
 

George

waitin' fer rabbits
Messages
853
Location
South Texas
This just keeps pooping up in all the economic news.

Whittemore Peterson Institute and Cerus Announce Inactivation of XMRV in Platelets and Red Blood Cells by the INTERCEPT Blood System​

- Data Confirming Inactivation of XMRV and MLV-Related Viruses is Presented at 1st International XMRV Workshop -
September 07, 2010 10:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time

RENO, Nev. & CONCORD, Calif.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--The Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease (WPI) and Cerus Corporation (NASDAQ:CERS) presented data at today's NIH-sponsored 1st International Workshop on XMRV which demonstrates the efficacy of Cerus' INTERCEPT Blood System to inactivate XMRV and other MLV-related viruses in donated blood. Recent scientific studies have detected these human retroviruses in up to seven percent of healthy blood donor samples, indicating approximately 20 million people in the United States could unknowingly be carrying the infection. XMRV and MLV-related viruses have been linked to prostate cancer and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS).

The genetic variability of XMRV and MLV-related viruses will make development of screening assays for the blood supply challenging

"The genetic variability of XMRV and MLV-related viruses will make development of screening assays for the blood supply challenging," said Dr. Judy Mikovits, director of research at WPI and lead author of the study. "The INTERCEPT technology demonstrates robust inactivation of these viruses and holds promise as a potential proactive approach to mitigating the risk of XMLV/MLV-related virus transmission via transfusion."

Co-author Dr. Lily Lin, vice president of global scientific affairs for Cerus, added, "The INTERCEPT system inactivates pathogens by crosslinking their DNA or RNA, which blocks their ability to replicate and prevents transmission of the infection. This mechanism of action is designed to provide prospective protection against emerging threats like XMRV and its genetic variants."

In a paper published online on August 23, 2010 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists from the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Food and Drug Agency detected the presence of a genetically diverse group of MLV-related viruses in 86 percent of CFS patient samples and in 6.8 percent of samples from healthy blood donors, leading to new concerns about the possibility of transfusion transmission. The PNAS study results are consistent with data from a 2009 study published in Science, which detected XMRV in 67 percent of CFS patients and 3.7 percent of healthy controls.

In the study conducted by WPI and Cerus, red blood cell and platelet components were contaminated with a natural isolate of XMRV and MLV-related viruses from an ME/CFS patient. INTERCEPT-treated and control samples were evaluated in a validated virus culture test, which allows sensitive detection of viral particles that are capable of reproducing. No viable virus was detected following treatment, indicating the INTERCEPT Blood System is capable of inactivating high levels (>4 logs) of the virus.

The INTERCEPT systems for platelets and plasma are used by over 60 blood centers in Europe, Russia and the Middle East. The INTERCEPT red cell system is in clinical development. The INTERCEPT Blood System is not yet approved for use in the United States.

ABOUT THE WHITTEMORE PETERSON INSTITUTE

The Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro Immune Disease exists to bring discovery, knowledge, and effective treatments to patients with illnesses that are caused by acquired dysregulation of both the immune system and the nervous system, often resulting in lifelong disease and disability. The Whittemore Peterson Institute is the first institute in the world dedicated to neuro-immune diseases, integrating patient treatment, basic and clinical research and medical education.

ABOUT CERUS

Cerus Corporation is a biomedical products company focused on commercializing the INTERCEPT Blood System to enhance blood safety. The INTERCEPT system is designed to reduce the risk of transfusion-transmitted diseases by inactivating a broad range of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and parasites that may be present in donated blood. The nucleic acid targeting mechanism of action allows INTERCEPT treatment to inactivate both established transfusion threats, such as hepatitis, HIV, West Nile virus and bacteria, as well as emerging pathogens such as influenza, malaria and dengue. Cerus currently markets and sells the INTERCEPT Blood System for both platelets and plasma in Europe, Russia, the Middle East and selected countries in other regions around the world. The INTERCEPT red blood cell system is in clinical development. Visit http://www.cerus.com for more information.

INTERCEPT and INTERCEPT Blood System are trademarks of Cerus Corporation.

References

1. Lo SC, et al. (2010) Detection of MLV-related virus gene sequences in blood of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome and healthy blood donors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online before print August 23, 2010.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/08/16/1006901107.full.pdf+html

2. Lombardi VC, et al. (2009) Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Science 326:585589.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1179052

3. Mikovits J, et al. (2010) Inactivation of XMRV and MLV-related viruses in platelet and RBC components prepared with the INTERCEPT Blood System. Presented at the 1st International Workshop on XMRV, September 7-8, 2010 (Bethesda, MD).
http://www.interceptbloodsystem.com/recent_publications.html
Contacts

R&R Partners for
Whittemore Peterson Institute
Amy Riley, 775-287-7930
amy.riley@rrpartners.com
or
Cerus Corporation
Lainie Corten, 925-288-6319
Director, Global Communications & Marketing
Permalink: http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eo...on/Whittemore-Peterson-Institute/blood-safety

It makes sense that the only way to clean up and insure the blood supply would be to do this. The virus is so widespread 3 to 7% that the only way to keep from giving infected blood to someone with a disposition to develop ME/CFS would be to scrub it.

Do you realize that there are more people with the virus that are not sick than people with the virus that are sick???? 3 to 7% of healthy controls verse's the .28% of ME/CFSers. Is anyone else struggling with that oddity?
 

George

waitin' fer rabbits
Messages
853
Location
South Texas
and here too

Biotech, Devices, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Cerus, With Technology to Knock Out Viruses in Blood, Finds New Potential in Chronic Fatigue
Luke Timmerman 9/7/10

Cerus has struggled for years to convince regulators that its technology for ridding the nations blood supply of pathogens deserves a chance on the U.S. market. Now the Concord, CA-based biotech company is pinning some renewed hope for its business on a study that says it can wipe out a newly discovered virus that some scientists suspect may the culprit behind the poorly understood disease known as chronic fatigue syndrome.

Cerus (NASDAQ: CERS), along with collaborators at the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease, are reporting today that the Cerus Intercept Blood System was able to wipe out all viable copies of a virus known as XMRV in the blood of an infected patient who had chronic fatigue syndrome. The findings are being presented today at the first International Workshop on XMRV being held at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.

The result is bound to stir interest among the many active patients online, and researchers, who have spent years trying to better define this malady and find out what causes it. Many scientists have been looking to find a virus that might be the cause, and a study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offered a provocative suggestion that XMRV could be involved. That study, by NIH and FDA scientists, found that 86 percent of blood samples from chronic fatigue syndrome patients had the virus, while it was present in just 6.8 percent of healthy samples.

The Cerus technology is designed to kill all kinds of known and unknown pathogens. So that means the company is hopeful that if XMRV is branded as a lurking threat in the nations blood supply contributing to chronic fatigue syndrome, then it might have a new justification for why its technology should be approved for sale in the U.S. market. The Cerus technology is already available for sale in the European Union, and CEO Claes Glassell is counting on this to provide his company with a lift in sales.
Claes Glassell

Claes Glassell

We think this study could potentially accelerate our rate of adoption in Europe, Glassell says. Its a new threat to blood safety, and a lot of people in Europe are wondering about how to address it. (read more)

I wonder why they are cropping up today (big grins)
 

Athene

ihateticks.me
Messages
1,143
Location
Italy
Hi George,

Did you really mean to say it keeps POOPING up in the news?!!!
(Giggles)
 

xrayspex

Senior Member
Messages
1,111
Location
u.s.a.
George, it will be interesting what cerus stock does this week.

Athene, wow, thanks for all the tech info....it will take me awhile to digest that, a little bit of rocket science for me right now ;)
I think I would rather have you analyze companies for me and give me the thumbs up or down
 

George

waitin' fer rabbits
Messages
853
Location
South Texas
George, it will be interesting what cerus stock does this week.

Athene, wow, thanks for all the tech info....it will take me awhile to digest that, a little bit of rocket science for me right now ;)
I think I would rather have you analyze companies for me and give me the thumbs up or down

(eyebrow wiggle) If you bought yesterday, you'd be up 5%.