Hoffy,
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Off Topic: Ferrante97 ...
Memory_Hole
Jul 18 1998
4:22PM EDT
I had never heard of OTC:BB CYGS (Cryogenic Solutions, Inc.), but here is some of what I have
dug up. Since May'97, CYGS has been promoting an anti-aging DNA therapy, which by the Fall,
they were also promoting for cancer treatment, apparently based on scientific papers they read.
You can read CYGS' PR at biogenix.com
Frankly, their PR seems long on hype, but short on proof; and CYGS does not file reports with
the SEC, making due dilligence very difficult. Using the huge Dow Jones News Retrieval
database, I could not find any non-CYGS biotech articles or press releases with the names of
Chairman Dell Gibson or President Mike Skillern.
I found some interesting background information in a 10 Jan 96 Wall Street Journal article, about
entrepreneur Howard Turney, who seems to have helped start up CYGS, and some other unusual
ventures. Most of the article, "Gray Market: The Elderly Obtain 'Rejuvenation' Drug Via Network
of Doctors", dealt with Turney's controversial promotion of human growth hormone for anti-aging
treatment. This was before CYGS, but I believe it is very revealing.
The article cited Genentech and Eli Lilly as two companies that legally sell the growth hormone
drug to treat dwarfism in children, but were not pursuing it to treat aging, because of serious
side-effects:
"besides carpal tunnel syndrome and male breast enlargement, the drug poses a risk of a
grotesque enlargement of facial features. And though they lack evidence, some researchers fear it
could promote cancer. Most emphatically warn against taking the drug, given the limited
knowledge of its long-term effects."
However, that did not deter Turney, as the article reported:
"But Howard Turney saw opportunity. A high-school dropout who has started and promoted
numerous businesses -- from shrimp farming to a hair salon featuring stylists in hot pants -- Mr.
Turney set up a clinic in Cancun, Mexico. ... His customers narrowly skirted U.S. law, which
allows American patients to import a 90-day personal supply of prescription drugs for
"life-threatening" conditions."
"Now, Mr. Turney has made it even easier for adults to get human growth hormone, in an
enterprise that, in legal terms, skates close to the line. Mr. Turney has set up a growth-hormone
supply network in the U.S., recruiting 38 American doctors who are generally inclined to
prescribe the drug -- imported from an unidentified Mexican distributor -- for adults willing to pay
its $13,000 annual cost."
"I sweated blood and played guinea pig over the last five years to develop these protocols,"
drawls Mr. Turney, who has no medical training and, despite his determination to retain optimal
health, smokes a pack of cigarettes a day. "This was not a 'by guess and by golly' thing."
The article also reveals CYGS's IMO bizarre original business when it started-up in 1995:
"Besides El Dorado, Mr. Turney's current business efforts include a company offering an
alternative to abortion: Remove the fetus, freeze it and save it for potential implantation at a more
convenient time. "Cryopreserved fetuses can be viably stored for several decades," confidently
states the stock-offering circular for Houston-based Cryogenic Solutions Inc ., which nonetheless
cautions investors that the shares involve "a high degree of risk." Mr. Turney says the company
already has one "baby in the can.""
CYGS dropped this venture in 1996 amid considerable ethical and scientific controversy.
Anti-abortionists feared that freezing aborted fetuses would promote abortion; scientists doubted
its feasibility. CYGS now promotes its new story: the aforementioned anti-aging/cancer DNA
therapy. They also promote what seems to be one of Turney's old ventures: shrimp farming, but
with a tie-in to their DNA therapy, that strikes me as just a bit too convenient.
I do not find this company very credible, and I suspect the recent run up in its stock is due to
"pump and dump." Time will tell.
MH
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