Hi Jill,
<< I still really like this company and idea although I recall you weren't that impressed. >>
I guess I'm probably not a good one to ask. I have just seen so many things that seemed liked very good ideas go down in flames, that it's extremely hard to impress me anymore.
Sometimes the way these great ideas implode is more than just disheartening, it is downright unbelievable, which only makes my skepticism worse over time.
Here's one example that comes to mind. There was a time when people thought that certain cardiac arrhythmias triggered ventricular fibrillation ("VF"), which as you may know is a kind of "heart fluttering" that is quickly fatal unless immediately treated. It had been known for a long time that just before people went into VF, they would generally have a lot of "extra heart beats" of a particular kind, called VPDs, especially something called "R-on-T VPDs". A patient would come in with a heart attack, and you'd put them on a monitor. You'd start seeing a string of these VPDs, getting more and more nervous all the time, then suddenly there'd be an "R-on-T" or two, and the patient's eyes would roll back in their head as they went into VF, the monitor looking like a seismograph during a 7.0 earthquake.
Well, if this kind of thing happens in the ER or ICU or the cath lab or something, it's always scary as hell but generally it's not really that big a deal, you just shock them as quickly as possible, and that generally does the trick on the first or second shot. Almost always, IF they are monitored, you can detect this and get them out of it in much less than a minute, often just 5 or 10 seconds or so if you're used to dealing with these kinds of things. But.... if they are anywhere else, especially out on the streets, their chances of surviving are very low. And even if they do survive, usually they'll lose so much brain function they'll never be able to tie their shoes again. Or even recognize their shoes. Obviously a big problem (which now is being addressed in a much better way, commercially too).
Anyhow, people figured these R-on-T things were the bad guys, and... well, they were right. So the idea came up that if we could just suppress these R-on-T things, then we could also suppress the fatal heart rhythm, decrease the chances it would occur, and save lots of lives. Sounded like a great plan for sure. And there were drugs available that definitely would suppress these "extra beats."
But... you can't just treat people with the medications. Those stodgy old types in the FDA that just constantly get in your way of saving lives (which, of course, you just KNOW you can do if they'd just get out of the way!) always insist on a stupid clinical trial, just to waste everybody's time and trouble, and meanwhile people are DYING, for crissakes !!!! So anyhow, they did a clinical trial. It was called CAST (for Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial). They gave patients who were at risk for fatal arrhythmias drugs to suppress these dangerous extra beats. And the drugs worked great. Monitoring studies on these patients showed the drugs were indeed suppressing the extra beats. Only one problem.
They had to stop the trial. The reason? The people who were getting the drugs to suppress their extra beats were keeling over dead with alarming frequency, at a much higher rate than control patients who were just getting placebo! So we suppressed their extra beats alright, but that only made things worse, not better!!
Now we know why that happened. But Jill, the thing is that this sort of totally unexpected result does not happen infrequently at all. So Steinbeck (Robert Burns, really) was right about the best-laid schemes of mice and men. So many great ideas either end up not working, or making things worse. But they all seem like such great ideas! Usually, the realization is that our ideas about the problem at hand were hopelessly simplistic and naive, but there is never any way to know that at the time, because you generate your ideas with the best available information.
I don't really mean to rain on your parade, maybe this thing will eventually work out, who knows. But I seem to remember looking into this, and seeing possible ways it could fail, and just losing interest because of that.
So.... when you hear me say what I did about Benitec, keep in mind that it is very hard to convince me that something has a good chance of working !!! With Benitec, it is not a slam dunk by any means, but I am impressed and very much encouraged.
This really doesn't sit well with me, since I've always been on the side of the little guy, always root for David over Goliath, can't stand Micro$haft, and so forth. But what I've found is that the things which actually do work out are things by companies that develop their drug or treatment or whatever in more "traditional" ways. That is, they avoid the pink sheet/OTC route. Maybe they come from an established outfit with a pipeline, like the Amgens and Genentechs or something. But on the other hand, maybe they have a startup (e.g., ALNY, or STEM), and they just wait until the company develops to the point where they can list on a more reputable exchange. They don't rush it, and they don't have problems with funding because if their idea is truly good, there's a gang of VC who can be fairly readily convinced to pony up money. Or, they can generate grant money, or both. The idea sells itself, but the funding sources are not naive, so they have to back up what they say with real data that support their ideas. The notion that there are a lot of brilliant ideas out there that will work wonders, except the world just doesn't understand, or is conspiring against them because entrenched interests are afraid of the potentially disruptive technology, and so they are held back, and forced to take non-traditional paths like the pinks.... well, it really is a nice idea, but it hardly ever happens in real life. Partly, I think that's because no matter what the entrenched interest, greed will push the idea along against even the biggest entrenched interest and suppressive efforts (people still sell heroin in countries where the penalty for doing so is death, after all!!). But also, the world isn't stupid. A great idea is almost always recognized. (There's a very interesting book on this subject, by the way. I've only read the excerpt, but I'd love to read the whole thing, even though the idea REALLY doesn't sit well with me at all. Check out this short excerpt, I think it will astonish you: randomhouse.com
I don't know, maybe there have been things that have worked out well that came from the shadowy corners of the pink/OTC world, but I can't think of a single one off the top of my head. On the other hand, I suppose there have been literally thousands of pink/OTC companies who had ideas (or at least hype) that people bought into, but went up in smoke eventually, with the principals cashing in at the shareholders expense in the end.
With regards to MRSA and candida and such, I think we'll see a whole generation of new drugs emerge that will work, because the immunology infrastructure is being expanded rapidly----we are starting to understand these things far better than we used to. That generally leads to solid advances, but it also will inevitably involve some "best laid schemes of mice and men" along the way.
Personally, I won't be scouring the pinks/OTC looking for those new things that actually end up working. I think the chances of any of these things emerging from the pinks/OTC are extremely low.
Anyhow, sorry I couldn't be more encouraging.
T |
