Jonathan,
I was working on the following for the past hour or so. I see you've covered a lot of what I was going to say. I face two choices:
1) I can edit what I wrote so I don't repeat what you just said. But I'm too damn lazy and I'm kind of zonked:
or
2) I can post the whole thing and let everyone plow through the duplicative parts. Well, I guess it won't kill anyone to read things twice, and I may put a slightly different twist on things than you do.
So here goes:
Paracelsian is organized into three subdivisions:
1) The BioFIT/Quality Assurance subdivision
2) The Environmental Testing (Ah ImmunoAssay) subdivision
3) The Drug Development subdivision
I discussed the first two subdivisions in my previous post. There is not too much new in the third subdivision that isn't contained in today's press release. As you now know, recent studies in the lab show that Andrographilide can be used synergistically with AZT to cut the amount of AZT needed to treat AIDS in half. This could result in significant savings for AIDS patients. Reducing the level of AZT used could also help patients because AZT has some rather nasty side
effects.
It should be noted that today's announcement concerned the results of
laboratory tests. It still has to be confirmed in animal models. As you know, in March PRLN released results of tests which demonstrated that its anti-cancer drug candidates did not demonstrate cancer fighting properties in animals. The market pounded PRLN's stock as a result, perhaps unfairly. What should be kept in mind is that it is not at all unusual for compounds that show anti-cancer properties in the lab to be modified once they enter into an animal's system, thus
decreasing their effectiveness. Animal testing is only the first stage of drug development. Drug candidates that fail to show activities can often be tweaked so that their analogues will overcome this temporary setback. Hira Gurtoo, the head of PRLN's drug development division, seemed confident that PRLN's anti-cancer compounds could be tweaked to overcome this difficulty, but this would
take time and money. There is a silver lining to this that did not come out in the press release in March. As Jonathan Schonsheck pointed out in an earlier post, PRLN may get a patent if it comes up with a tweaked analogue of Andrographilide, whereas less patent protection would be available if Andrographilide did not have to be tweaked.
One of the compounds that PRLN had tested in the March animal experiments was Andrographilide. This caused me to raise the following question: Unmodified andrographilide did not show the same cancer-fighting properties in animal systems that it did in the lab experiments. Could we expect the same results for its HIV-fighting properites? In other words, if animal systems somehow prevented andrographilide's cancer fighting activity, should we expect
that andrographilide would lose its AIDS fighting ability in animals as well? The answer is that they don't know. There is no way to know until tests are run. We are talking about two different mechanisms here, so just because unmodified andrographilide loses its cancer-fighting abilities in animals doesn't necessarily
mean it will lose its ability to counter the AIDS virus in animals as well. Dr. Gurtoo did note that andrographilide had been in use in Indian medicine for 5000 years as well as in Chinese medicine for thousands of years. It has a long history of fighting viral infections.
I said that PRLN had only three divisions and I implied that there would only be three revenue streams. OK, call me a liar. There is actually a fourth and potentially very exciting revenue stream that PRLN is about to develop soon. I hope you have all visited the <a
href="http://www.newcenturynutrition.com/">New Century Nutrition site.</a> They are setting up the site to be a unique internet portal. There are tons of sites on the internet where one can find information about herbs and dietary supplements. The NCN site will be unique in that it will have information on Traditional Chinese Medicine and Plant-Based Nutrition that can't be found anywhere else on the net. That is great, but that is not the best part. Potential
customers will be lured to the site with the valuable information presented. Once there, they can enter a virtual mall. As you know, we already have our virtual bookstore set up in conjunction with Barnes and Noble. Three weeks from now we will have a virtual store offering traditional Chinese Medicine and a virtual store offering Plant-based products such as Chinese medicinal mushrooms. The TCM store will have 28 products and the Plant based store will
have 10 products. I am not sure if all the products will be available upon the opening of these stores or if they will be introduced gradually. In any case, the beauty of this TCM store is that PRLN will not have to carry any inventory. All they have to do is set up the virtual store, pass the orders on to the supplier who does all the work of keeping an inventory and fullfilling the orders, and collect
their fees for selling the products through the site. I believe a similar arrangement will be struck for the plant-based store, though there might be some low inventory costs associated with this.
I find the New Century Nutrition information center and mall is exciting for two reasons:
1) It should generate revenue with minimal work on the company's part.
2) If the site becomes popular it could give PRLN the cachet of an internet stock. Stocks such as e-bay and Priceline are obscenely priced if you consider their P/E ratio. Actually, Priceline has no earnings in sight and it is valued around $100/share. If we could get 1/10 of their cachet, I will be very happy.
So that covers the basics. Someone asked Bernie when he thought the
company would turn its first profit. It is hard to say but his best guess was that it would be the first quarter of next year.
There is one other thing I should mention--perhaps it is the most important thing of all. It has nothing to do with any specific product of the company. It has little to do with when it will achieve its next scientific breakthrough or who it will partner with for its next marketing collaboration. It is nothing tangible. It can not
be measured. But its importance can not be understated. I got the feeling that there was true harmony within the company. The atmosphere seemed almost like one of a family. And at the risk of sounding hokey or sentimental, I got the feeling that they considered the stockholders to be part of the family. Bernie said, and I'm quoting, "I work for all of you. It's your company." He told us that
he valued our imputs and we should call the company if we had any concerns or if we had any ideas that might help the company. The attitude of the company to its stockholders is completely the opposite of what it was during the bad old days of the previous Administration. PRLN had developed valuable assets under the previous Administration, but bad blood between its members nearly killed the company. It was a breath of fresh air to see how much things have changed.
Robin
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