To: GARY P GROBBEL who wrote (37976 ) 8/3/2005 10:17:28 AM From: GemSeeker Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 120405 ILE...2.78 this was recently in the 7 and 8 range but a huge selloff this week brought it down into micro territory. Very compelling stock at this price. Some details for those who might be interested: Everyone knows about botox and its extreme popularity amongst the pampered classes. A huge industry ($900 million this year is current projection) just getting started. Well, botox has certain disadvantages. The biggest one being that it's effects are temporary. The substance is eventually absorbed into the body. Since it is a foreign substance it is also subject to rejection. A Houston outfit by the name of Isolagen (ILE) has developed a new approach to wrinkle removal. They take a smale piece of skin the from behind the ear and grow the cells in the lab for about 8 weeks, and then inject them beneath frown lines and scars by a plastic surgeon. Isolagen claims that the implanted cells grow in the same way as ordinary skin cells and that, unlike collagen fillers or the nerve-paralysing toxin Botox, the effect does not wear off. In fact, it claims, the effects get better over time. If so, it may be the closest anyone has come to achieving true skin regeneration. Since it comes from the recipients body originally, it is never rejected. Britain and Australia place Isolagen in the same category as tissue banks. This means that while the company's labs have to comply with certain standards, it did not have to submit safety and efficacy data before marketing its treatment. Isolagen is also opening facilities in New Zealand, South Korea and Hong Kong. The Isolagen treatment was briefly available in the US in the mid-1990s, but the Food and Drug Administration asked the company to withdraw it voluntarily while it decided how to regulate therapies of this kind. It later asked Isolagen to perform clinical trials, though with fewer patients than in most phase II and III trials. Approval will come via a BLA which is an expidited FDA fast track process. News that came out this week suggests the company made a real bonehead mistake in teaching the docs in the trials about the proper injection techniques. Has cost them huge market cap and added at least 9 months to the entire approval process. Hence the 50% haircut in the lsat couple days. Absolutely nothing in the data available so far would indicate any problems with efficacy and ultimate FDA approval. ILE has also done some preliminary studies in the treatment of periodontal disease with very promising results. ILE process has 5 patents with more coming. 30 mil shares o/s with 27 in float and a market cap of $83M. Cost of this process is fairly high. A high priority at ILE these days is to get the cost down. They recently indicated some significant progress in this regard. The boomers have proved their willingness to spend big bucks on wrinkle remedies. Even if the treatment remains expensive, the market is vast. The surprising thing about ILE is that no one knows it exists. No RB board, AOL board, SI board and a very quiet yahoo board (until recently!). Flying totally under everybody's radar, which is a good place to find 'em. Once FDA appproval comes through, I would expect visibility to pick up dramatically. Along with price. No guaranty, but the real possibility exists of getting in on the "next big thing" in plastic surgery way before the rest of the crowd.