Subject: There they go again!
Date: Sat, Nov 29, 1997 13:41 EST
From: PBehar
Message-id: <19971129184101.NAA24219@ladder01.news.aol.com>
I trust that the following article will not "spook" any of our holders.
Some may use this article to calculate a shorter useful life for Viracept, interpreting that a vaccine is imminent, however, if read fully, the PI's have a minimum 10 year life.
Friday November 28 4:42 PM EST
Doctors Cautiously Optimistic on AIDS Vaccine
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Medical researchers said on Friday they are cautiously
optimistic that a plethora of new drugs being developed could lead to an
effective AIDS vaccine.
As news that AIDS cases soared to 30 million worldwide hit the headlines and
amid preparations for World Aids Day on Monday, doctors in Britain said a
small trial of a potential vaccine had proved promising.
Researchers at Britain's Medical Research Council who tested a vaccine based
on a manufactured protein called rgp120 on 30 healthy volunteers found it
was 10 times more potent than other experimental therapies.
Tests on animals in the Netherlands showed it protected them from an
AIDS-type virus.
"We should be cautiously optimistic," Dr. Tim Peto told BBC television.
"We've got lots of drugs to test. There may be 15 or 16 drugs good enough to
actually prolong life 10-15 years. The challenge is to do trials on
different mixtures and find out how to give them, what order to give them
and how many to give at once.
Rgp 120 is similar to one of the components in the outer shell of the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS. The vaccine uses new
additives, known as adjuvants, which are combinations of compounds that are
designed to increases the response of the immune system to the HIV-like
protein.
"We think rgp120 is an important component of any potential HIV vaccine. It
stimulates the immune system into responding to the coating of HIV, even
though there is no virus there," said Professor Jonathan Weber, who
conducted the study.
"The results of the study are that the new adjuvants containing three
chemicals, triple adjuvants called SBAS2, is very potent," he added in an
interview.
If further tests on animals are successful large-scale trials with human
AIDS patients could follow.
Doctors in the United States have already volunteered to test a live virus
vaccine on themselves but the National Institutes of Health say it is too
dangerous.
The U.S. researchers believe that if the vaccine works -- it is made up of a
genetically weakened but live strain of the AIDS virus -- an AIDS vaccine
could be developed within 10 years.
Since the AIDS virus was identified in 1984, medical developments to combat
the deadly disease have been swift.
First the drug AZT, then combination drug therapy and the celebrated
protease inhibitor compounds have offered hope to sufferers, but "real
world" conditions have shown they are not as effective as clinical trials
had suggested.
After promising early results, patients often develop resistance to the
drugs.
The problem in finding an effective treatment is the virus's complexity. HIV
is the most variable virus ever studied.
"The high rates of replication, mutation, and recombination of HIV enable
the virus to evolve rapidly in the host and so outstrip immune responses
evoked by natural immunity or a vaccine," Professor Charles Bangham, of
Imperial College School of Medicine in London, explained in The Lancet
medical journal on Friday.
HIV replicates in the body very quickly. It makes mistakes when it makes
copies of its genetic code and these mutations allow it to evade the immune
system and antiviral drugs. The virus is also latent in some cells and
infection can re-emerge when, for whatever reason, it becomes reactivated.
So for any vaccine to be effective it needs to protect against more than one
strain of the virus.
Bangham and his colleague, Professor Rodney Phillips of John Radcliffe
Hospital in Oxford, believe hope for a vaccine lies in the fact that the
human immune system seems to suppress HIV in early infection.
Animal studies have also shown that infection with a weakened virus -- what
the U.S. doctors want to try -- may protect against more virulent strains.
"The reason there is some cause for optimism in vaccine development is that
there are clearly conserved parts of the virus. The body can mount an immune
response to these bits of the virus that do not change and are relatively
constant over time," said Weber.
"Things are going in the right direction. There has been a lean period in
the last few years but there is progress once again."
end
Since it is a holiday weekend, and I'm already "venting":
It is not easy to find the right stock, but, then again, you don't need that many.
All you need is one stock every five or ten years. (not every five or ten minutes as some of our Sesame Street trained shareholders believe.)
When you find that stock, and I believe Agouron is one, you must really play it!
You can tell that I don't believe in diversification, because I feel that all that diversification does is guarantee that you have some losers.
Investment history showed me that big money was made by finding the right stock and playing it the hilt, resting, and finding the next stock. Trading is fun, but it does not build large portfolios. (Professionals excepted).
I originally found and bought Agouron not for its AIDS drug. I bought their process for creating drugs. In fact, they didn't have an AIDS drug in their book yet.
Their drug creating process, which for novices, can be found in their Web page, is the driving force in this company. With this excellent management, (look at what they have accomplished) and the acquisition of Alanex, we have the basis for a great growing company. I feel that the value of Alanex has not been addressed or realized. A true sleeper.
As to the wild stock price gyrations. This is a necessary procedure for a stock that is to double and triple or even become a 10 or 20 bagger. There must be doubters, there must be traders taking their small profits along the way. The true winners will be the long term holders who increase their positions, if feasible, when major new highs are made. Shall we say, big volume at 58.
I must leave to eat some leftovers, so I leave you with, the last big stock I had was a company whose process I liked a lot, Amgen. 30 to 700
Happy Holidays!
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