>I find nothing odd in the idea of treating cancer with heat.<
That’s a good start :-) Many folk react to it as being silly.
>>The concept seems sound to me. I am aware they have done something similar in concentrating radiation at a certain source (e.g., prostate) from different directions. This heat system seems better in concept, assuming that the tissues that are heated a little (far from the tumor) or heated a fair amount (closer to the tumor) are not permanently affected by the heat. I do have to wonder about that, since the theory on cell phones is that the radio waves are heating brain cells just a little and causing bad events long term. <<
I worked in the tech area of measuring potentially hazardous electromagnetic fields for quite a while (and one of my contributions proved useful to BSD Medical – namely an essentially “transparent” probe for accurate temperature measurements in tissue being heated by strong EM fields – it’s still the world standard!). During that time and after, I developed a healthy (perhaps) skepticism about such hazards – as *many* of the claimed bad effects eventually proved wrong. Of course, that does not rule out harmful effects, especially at high levels of exposure. And, cell phone EM fields are pretty high, next to their antennas. Also, brain matter might be particularly susceptible. Regardless, I think the issue is mute for someone with cancer – they are in dire condition after all. And, I doubt the hazards from therapeutic microwave heating are anywhere near the hazards from ionizing radiation or biologically nasty chemicals used for chemotherapy.
Re chemotherapy, the awful side effects can be greatly reduced, at least for some drugs, by encapsulating them (tiny capsules) in materials that melt just above normal body temperatures. Then, the drugs are released only at the heated tumor; which is also far more permeable to the drug because of being heated (Thermodox is one such encapsulated drug).
>>And at a miniscule market cap, BSDM would do quite well if it got even a small chunk of the money being spent on cancer therapy.<<
Yes! And, much more than a small chunk is realistically in the offing – timing, uncertain, of course.
>>1. Have there been side effects from the treatment?<<
I believe the side effects are much smaller than those for surgery or radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The BSD Medical website list many studies that show little in the way of bad side effects (when the equipment is properly used, anyway).
>>2. What is the expected cost for a course of treatment?<<
Substantially less, I believe, than the other options – but, only when treatments reach a reasonable level for a given machine. This is happening now, for the BSD-500 and the MTX-180. And, a machine they sold off to ThermatrX (American Medical Systems) for benign prostate hypertrophy treatments did well (less so, recently).
>>3. What cancers has it been tested on successfully/unsuccessfully?<<
Many. But, I have to suggest you visit bsdmedical.com for a better answer.
>>4. Does the treatment provide cures, or does it provide improvement in life expectancy only?<<
Both. And, the cures or improvements are very substantial. In reading about such results, remember that they presently are mostly from investigational studies; which usually involve difficult cases that have failed other treatments. Most recently, Phase III investigations (blind comparisons, “long”-term) are using randomly matched cases, with very good results for microwave heating. Again, the website is the best source of info about such trials. Or, the FDA website should show the same results, as BSD M. relies on FDA trial results for their promotional material. Two of their products are now in clinical use: the BSD-500 and the MTX-180 (the BSD-2000, also, under a “Humane Device Exemption”). Note that the website refers you to off-site info for some of the products, as they are in use in foreign countries, but not yet FDA- approved here.
>>5. Assuming good test results, how long until the treatment is available and covered by Medicare?<<
Medicare already covers a variety of treatments. Cancer Treatment Centers of America has quite a few BSD-500’s and has a couple (I think) of the BSD-2000s on order (or already I use?).
>>6. What is the risk of running out of money (bk) or having dilutions before then? How many dilutions?<<
They already went through a recent series of dilutions, yielding something like $20 million, as I remember. Last I saw, they had about $10 million left. Due in part to costs of introducing the MTX-180 (higher than planned, due to the recession) they have been burning money fast. But, it now appears they are on the verge of profitability (or, more pertinent, reaching positive cash flow) – due to a now successful MTX-180 introduction. The $ situation will become much clearer when they issue their next 10K (about 12 Nov). Beware: the stock price is now and will be in a turmoil until at least some time after the 10K is released. I expect much good news for months, at least. I will hold my shares regardless of such turmoil.
>>7. How high is the moat? The idea of using heat is not patentable I assume. So how hard would it be for GE or someone else to jump in the game and develop a competing system.<<
They have some patents and claim they are important. But, this issue is a difficult one, as always. I think a more likely development will be a strategic alliance with one or more large entities – the company has been emphasizing such is afoot. In particular, GE and Siemens are the leading mfrs of MRI machines, which provide a natural and powerful combo with BSD M.’s equipment: forming the BSD-2000/3d/MRI.
“8. Are cancer cells more susceptible to heat than normal cells?”
Yes. They have poor blood circulation, so they get hotter. And, there are some differing biological responses that I do not understand well enough to comment on.
“9. IS BSDM working now on better systems itself?”
I do not know what improvements come next, but I think they plan some. They recently expanded their phased-array tech to the BSD-2000 and the BSD-500. And, they plan some applications other than cancer treatments – but are rather mum on this.
>>10. What about alternate systems of accomplishing the same? Seems to me that I have heard of research to introduce silver or gold molecules selectively into cancer cells and then use the molecules to highten heat treatments. Or maybe my memory is off on that.<<
Two things: 1) water molecules are good absorbers of microwave energy, and they are everywhere in the body; 2) whatever molecules you might introduce to enhance the heating at some location, no one (yet, at the very least) has better tech for precisely delivering the EM field energy at the locations of interest.
>>11. Why not wait a year to buy, if one is figuring to buy? (I ask this, because even with story stocks that come through, often one sits on dead money for years, or suffers through dilutions, waiting for the stock to become popular).<<
Yep. The timing issue has certainly been pertinent for BSDM! They have been pursuing their business for over 30 years! – with scant profit only now and then. But, the MTX-180 (newest product) faces an already established market area that is also rapidly growing – and the unit is far better than the competition (direct and indirect) in that area. So, the most likely event, IMO, is a rapid growth to profitability for BSD Medical – just from that product.
>>Lots of questions. You can skip some or all of them as you choose. <<
They are very good questions -- ones I have pondered for quite a while. My view is that it is “all systems on go” for the MTX-180, and that alone is enough – again IMO – to propel BSDM to possibly $100/sh. |
