One important aspect of this investment: It has Hollywood's backing. Why? Because Sharon Stone alluded to the phase III trials in an award show a few months ago -- she told the audience that there was "Hope" that a vaccine was working; Because Dustin Hoffman, who modeled his part in "Outbreak" on Don Francis (Dr. Francis was the researcher dropped out of a helicopter into Africa to study the devastation of Ebola Virus -- then an unknown pathogen), lived with Dr. Francis for weeks to study the role; Because The Band Played On was about Don Francis and Mathew Modine (who played Dr. Francis in the movie) got to know Don well; Because all of Hollywood is behind AIDS research, and they are connected to Dr. Francis, and they know about his work. That should accelerate the investment.
Other interesting side notes? The Clinton administration "promised" a vaccine against AIDS a while ago -- about whom were they speaking?? Only VaxGen had a serious product.
The FDA wants to play ball. They set the efficacy level for approval at 30% -- a level that should be a slam-dunk for VaxGen's AIDSVAX. Why did they do that? Because the FDA wants to make it happen.
Another important point to consider: Once AIDSVAX is approved, all other vaccine research efforts will chuck their plans and join VaxGen's methodology (the GP antigen site approach). This is analogous to what happened with Jonas Salk's polio vaccine. His vaccine was imperfect, but as soon as it began being used the entire scientific community began working to improve it. That's how Sabin's improvements came about. Part of the reason is that everyone knows that once the GP 120 method is FDA approved, and VaxGen's scientists are going to be adding more antigen components, who is going to go through a five year multi-million dollar effort to work out a NEW approach, when an approved vaccine is already available? In the history of vaccines, that has not been the course of events. People start to work on making the approved vaccine better.
Finally, let's not forget that the revered NIH -- the richest, most prestigious, biggest and most influential medical research organization in the world -- in a missive written by no less a figure than Anthony Fauci, M.D., has specifically indicated that they made a mistake in earlier ignoring VaxGen and that they admit that VaxGen's trials are legitimate, worthy of attention, and, in effect, the best shot we are going to have for an AIDS vaccine in the next 5-7 years. The NIH is backing VaxGen!Go to the NIH website and see for yourself.
I don't know when people are going to wake up to what VaxGen has, and what its potential is, but when they do... game over. This investment will be Microsoft-like in its returns. |
