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Biotech / Medical : BJCT-BIOJECT-needle less injection product -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GREG FINLEY who wrote (345)	12/21/1998 9:46:00 AM
From: geewiz	Respond to of 534

Greg and BJCT Gang, Thanks for the holiday cheer, and here's wishing you similar good tidings. Remember the NBC news on Powderject several weeks ago? As a follow up I found this interesting short piece in the London Financial Times on December 8,1998; For private use; POWDERJECT IN VACCINE ADVANCE In a trial by Powderject Pharmaceuticals, a UK biotechnology company, has become the first in the world to elicit a protective immune response in humans using a DNA vaccine. The company, which is developing DNA vaccines with Glaxo Welcome, yesterday said all 11 patients that had completed a Phase I study for a DNA vaccine against Hepatitis B,, a potentially fatal liver condition had developed sufficient antibodies to protect them against the disease. ........... Other companies are developing DNA vaccines but Powderject last week won a European patent for its delivery technology. This enables DNA to be administered into the body by attaching it to microscopic gold particles propelled into the skin at supersonic speed using a helium jet. The method is up to 1,000 times more efficient than conventional injection. ............... I remember we were delivering Hepatitis vaccines, but I certain they were not based on a DNA platform. Regardless, the efficiency claimed is noteworthy. holiday best to all, art

To: GREG FINLEY who wrote (345)	12/23/1998 9:39:00 AM
From: geewiz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 534

Here's one more for our holiday cheer; Forbes magazine, October 19,1998; For private use only; PREYING ON HOPE Millions of diabetic patients jab their fingers - some as often as eight times a day - to check the concentration of sugar in their blood. A patient may spend $1,000 a year on chemical strips that measure the sugar in a drop of blood. It's a painful nuisance to the sufferers, but a boon to J&J's LifeScan unit, which holds close to 50% share of the $2.5 billion world market in glucose monitoring products. But suppose someone could figure out a way to check sugar levels without invading the body, avoiding that painful bloodletting. "It'll be like Viagra for diabetics," proclaims David Kliff, an investment newsletter publisher in Buffalo Grove, Ill ........ But the claims of some of these companies are more hype than hope. Consider Futrex Inc. of Gaihersburg, Md. In 1991 Futrex became the first company to announce that it had measured blood sugar, known as glucose, noninvasively. How? By shining invisible near-infrared light on a person and measuring how much was absorbed by his blood sugar. his technique has been used for 20 years to assess the quality of grains like wheat and corn. Futrex said its chief remaining hurdle was to reduce the size and cost of the measuring apparatus. A few years later the company seemed to have shrunk the device to he size of a small transistor radio; it was dubbed the Dream Beam, and Futrex's president, Robert Rosenthal, demonstrated it in public trials. Whoops! in 1996 the SEC brought suit on charges of making false claims about the Dream Beam, effectively stopping Futrex. Though the suit is pending, former employees of Futrex have testified in depositions that neither the Dream Beam or its "prooof of principle" predecessor ever worked.......Employees knew that Rosenthal massaged data from field trials. If a given sample yielded bad results, he would just throw it out. Biocontrol Technology in Pittsburg, Pa., is another company with a hyped product. It makes an infrared light-based device called the Diasensor 1000. The FDA has twice refused to approve its sale because it was accurate on only a handful of people. Biocontrol boasts that the device has been approved for sale in Europe, but it has so far sole exactly seven of the machines, at $9,000 apiece. Hope springs eternal. Three companies - Integ, Cygnus and Technical Chemicals and Products - are developing devices to measure glucose in interstitial fluid, which sits just underneath the skin. But they've repeatedly missed deadlines for filing applications to the FDA, and investors have dumped their stocks. Dr Robert Gooldstein of the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation thinks noninvasive device is five to ten years away. The best thing in the offing right now may be a semi-invasive monitor, MiniMed a maker of insulin pumps, has submitted to the FDA a tiny sensor that would be implanted just under the skin and would transmit glucose data to a beeper-size meter. Unfortunately, the sensor would have to be inserted with a needle and replaced every few days. Copywrite Forbes Magazine (partially incomplete article) Oct 19,1998 .............. Given all the hyped efforts I appreciate BJCT's stealth approach. Holiday best to all, art