Graham, I haven't heard any news lately about the pipeline from Sunpharm. I was intrigued to listen to an Informed Investors Forum presentation by ILXO and hear the speaker enthuse about what an attractive target polyamines are for cancer therapy. ILXO's approach (still preclinical, as I recall) is to use a molecule that causes the cell membrane to prevent polyamines from entering the cell. Polyamines play an essential role in cell division (they are required for the replicaiton of DNA). Although a cell produces polyamines on its own, a rapidly dividing cell (e.g., a cancer cell) needs more polyamines than it can produce on its own, so by blocking the outside supply of polyamines from entering the cell, you can slow down, if not block altogether, the duplication of the cell.
Sunpharm's approach, as developed by its chief researcher, Dr. Bergeron, is to develop pseudo-polyamines (i.e., polyamine analog's), which can pass through the cell membrane to get into the cell, but cannot get out again (genuine polyamines can pass through the cell membrane in either direction). Because the cell attempts to maintain a proper concentration of polyamines and for that purpose cannot distinguish the imposters from the genuine polyamines, the concentration of genuine polyamines in the cell gets diluted to the point where there are not enough polyamines in the cell to support cell division (the polyamine analogs are barren in that respect and cannot themselves support cell division).
What caught my attention was to hear a second company (ILXO) corroborate Dr. Bergeron's view that polyamines are a good target for fighting proliferative diseases. My impression is that Dr. Bergeron knows more about polyamines than anyone else, so if this area has important therapeutic implications, having access to Dr. Bergeron's pipeline is a very valuable asset.
The stock market is all excited about genomics research just now because of its implications for being able to generate a huge pipeline of new therapies. When that enthusiasm begins to spread to third tier biotech companies with great science that is also capable of generating a long-lasting pipeline of new and valuable products, companies like GELX (as the successor to Dr. Bergeron's research) will become the new hot item. GELX is forming a base around $10, being held down there by tax loss selling. As soon as we get through this Y2K thing, I'll be very tempted to go long again.
Marc |
