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“How to Get Rich From the Cures on Demand Windfall” With Marc Lichtenfeld’s “Biggest Blockbuster of 2013”

What's the teased "little-known research company" that "has come up with the biggest advance in medicine in the last 150 years?"

Every biotech-related teaser ad promises that you can make life-changing profits while also curing the world of a dread disease, of course — that’s why we love ’em.

But this one’s a little bit different — they are teasing a biotech company that is trying to develop new drugs, but according to the pitch this particular company is unique and extra-desirable because they have the technology to do drug discovery faster and better than the old time-tested ways.

Here’s how the ad puts it:

“it’s not a drug… surgical tool… new cancer treatment… nor anything else you might expect.

“Rather, it involves stunning technology that accurately designs new drugs to treat or even cure – many of the world’s most dreaded diseases.

“Better yet, it then lays out a blueprint for how to create these new drugs on a mass scale.

“We call it ‘Cures on Demand’….”

“A Shocking Medical Breakthrough is About to Shake a $956 Billion/Year Industry to Its Core…

“And Hand Early Investors Life-Changing Gains”

Now, they’d delight in sharing the news of this company with you … but first, they want you to subscribe to their new newsletter. This pitch is for the Healthcare Profits Alert from the Oxford Club — it’s edited by Marc Lichtenfeld, who has moved around within the Agoraplex of related publishers and launched or written for several different healthcare-related investment newsletters in the last few years … and they’re being putting this letter on the top shelf, with a $4,995 price tag.

Of course it’s “on sale” at the moment, since they’re just launching the letter, and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether any readers will ever actually pay that high list price (the trend, as I see it, is toward publishers having one or two super-expensive newsletters, and a half dozen cheaper or almost-free ones that funnel into ads for the “all in one” package deals or these super-premium letters where huge publisher profits are generated) — but the “charter” subscription rate is a still-pricey $895, so let’s see if we can ID the pick they’re teasing for a more reasonable price, shall we? Like, perhaps free-ish?

Right … well, the Thinkolator is game to give it a try. First, a bit more of the hypey overview from the ad:

“Imagine a world where drug companies can eliminate years of painstaking research to develop a new cancer treatment… cholesterol medicine… or anti-inflammatory pill.

“They simply use this technology and almost instantly find out the best new drug candidates.

“I know that sounds crazy, but it’s happening right now.

“It’s a completely new paradigm for the entire $956 billion a year pharmaceutical industry.

“And if this situation plays out as we anticipate, it could lead to the single biggest gains of any investment we’ve recommended in our 25-year history.

“A Northwestern University professor recently reported on the effects of just one of these new “Cures on Demand” compounds – in this case, a multiple sclerosis-fighting drug.

“He called the results ‘quite dramatic’ and ‘long-lasting’.

“And that’s just one of the many cures this innovation stands to create in the days ahead…

“This ‘Cures on Demand’ technology could soon send dozens, even hundreds of diseases, conditions, and maladies straight into the medical history books.

“In other words, it’s the mother of all drug breakthroughs.

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“And here’s the thing…

“We’ve been closely tracking the one tiny company behind this story for over three years.”

So we’re told that now the “stars are aligned perfectly” for this company and their technology — but they’re not well known yet, so you can still buy in cheap.

Criminy, this is a long ad — you can check out the whole thing here if you’d like to. I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t have the patience.

But this next part is really the key, explaining that our top-secret company is going to get rich by saving drug companies billions:

“They’re Closing the Books on Pharma’s Trillion-Dollar ‘Wild Goose Chases’

“From Hippocrates… to Madam Curie… right on up to today’s most advanced research labs… Drug discovery has pretty much been the same old story.

“Years, sometimes decades of trial and error, billions of dollars spent…

“And 999 out of 1000 times, it’s all for naught.

“A recent Forbes study showed that Eli Lilly spends about $4.5 billion in research and development (R&D) overall, for every new drug they actually bring to market!

“GlaxoSmithKline is even worse, at $8.1 billion…

“And AstraZeneca takes the cake, burning through a mind-boggling $12 billion per ‘success.’

“‘At $12 billion per drug, inventing medicines is a pretty unsustainable business,’ says Forbes biotech expert, Matthew Herper.

“‘But,’ Herper adds, ‘If a drug company could promise to invent new medicines for [millions instead of billions], its stock price would soar like Apple’s.’

“And that’s exactly what this Cures on Demand technology is primed to do.

“The days of billion dollar hunts for needles in haystacks are about to end.

“Thanks to one company, it’s as if we now have a GPS that instantly zeroes in on exactly where the needle is hidden.”

So it is, at the very least, a great story. So who’s the company?

Well, we need a bit more in the way of clues before we can fill up the hopper on the ol’ Thinkolator this afternoon — sometimes I like to jump up confidently and proclaim our answers right away, but I just got clobbered at Monopoly by two six year olds and a nine year old, so I’m feeling a big humble. Think I’ll double check everything here before I spill the beans.

Let’s hear more from the ad about exactly what this company’s “cures on demand” technology does:

“… this company’s created a computerized version of the human cellular system… down to each molecule.

“They’ve ‘taught’ it everything there is to know about protein databases… gene mutation behavior… RNA splice variants… and much, much more…..

“This company’s scientists feed in the chemical and biological traits of a disease.

“The human cell simulator then creates billions and billions of ‘virtual’ drugs to try to fight the disease.

“For each drug, it calculates how fast it would act.

“It analyzes how effective it would be.

“It figures out side effects, both good and bad.

“It then rejects billions of these possibilities.

“And narrows down the possible cures to a dozen or so ‘winners.’

“They’ve just accomplished in days or hours what used to take years or decades.”

Then we get an example of one recent project of theirs, which should give us a few more clues:

“In one recent experiment, the company set up its system to search for special molecules that play a major role in treating cancer and many other diseases.

“Specifically, they were on the hunt for what doctors call “G-protein-coupled receptors.” These determine how various chemicals interact with the human immune system.

“The Cures on Demand algorithm generated 33 different molecule “blueprints.” The company then had its doctors create these actual molecules in a laboratory.

“An astonishing eight out of the 33 produced the desired result.

“In other words, almost 25% of its predictions were correct!

“Compare that to previous methods, where success is often literally a ‘one in a million’ shot.”

We’re told that this system keeps getting better with every simulation it runs, because it then learns from all those interactions as well … and, perhaps most importantly for investors, that “no other company is even close to creating a system like this one has.”

And we also learn that this company plans to maintain an ownership interest in all the new drugs their technology could help develop, through royalties. That always perks up my ears, since royalties have almost a magical halo here at Gumshoe HQ — who doesn’t like an ongoing stream of cash that doesn’t require any additional work or investment? Of course, they don’t always work out or generate cash, whether the royalty is on a gold mine or a drug or a patent … but when they do, oh, it’s just lovely.

Then a few more clues come rolling in …

“In just the early days of this technology, this company has already signed licensing agreements with some of Pharma’s most serious players, including Biosite, Medarex, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics and Roche….”

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a teaser ad if we didn’t get an over the top promise of profits (along with a few more clues):

“There’s no reason this company won’t soon be involved in 10% of the $95.6 billion drug market.

“And let’s say they collect just a meager 5% royalty on that $95.6 billion dollars. That’s over $4.7 billion a year.

“Right now this company is tiny, with a market cap of just $200 million, and shares trading at around $5.

“So $4.7 billion a year in new revenue would instantly multiply the company’s value by a double-digit factor!

“The stock could easily jump from $5 to $30 or more. And turn less than $2,000 into more than $10,000, in a heartbeat.”

And yes, “soon” is one of those words that doesn’t really have a tight legal definition. But the bigger issue is that math — presumably the royalties they collect would only be on the drugs they’re involved with, so if they’re (eventually, in this hypothetical world) involved in 10% of the $95 billion market that’s $9.5 billion worth of business that has something to do with this company. If they earn a 5% royalty on all of that business, that’s not $4.7 billion a year for this company — that’s $475 million for this company in royalties.

Which would still be gobsmacking spectacular, of course, for a company that has lost millions of dollars a year throughout pretty much its entire existence, and which really does have a market cap of only $200 million. But $475 million is not $4.7 billion.

So yes, we’ve let the cat out of the bag — we know who this stock is. We fed all that info through the mighty, mighty Thinkolator and got a nice high-certainty answer: This is Compugen (CGEN)

And I had never heard of them before today, so take my thoughts with a big ol’ grain of salt and go researchifying on your own if you’re interested in this stock, please.

Compugen is an Israeli firm, and they call themselves a “product discovery company” — like many biotech research firms, they’ve been around for a decade or more and have generated the cash they need to survive through both selling shares and making research deals with pharma companies. They do lots of little incremental financing deals, it appears from their financials, and they run through roughly $4-5 million in cash per quarter without ever really generating any revenue. That’s not surprising, there are usually a few biotech research firms like this around who don’t really pour tens of millions into one specific drug campaign and thus risk going out of business instantly — at first glance it looks like there’s enough promise in the science that backers are there to help them keep losing money, but not so much promise that it has turned into sales or a lucrative takeover bid.

Still, it’s significant that they qualify as “pretty big” for a prospect generator in the biotech space — they have a market cap of almost $200 million in a business where there are a lot of ridiculous little pretenders with market caps down around $20-30 million. So even without knowing anything about the science, and certainly without following them for years or meeting with management as Lichtenfeld says he has, we can at least say they’re not ridiculous. They’ve run through about $180 million or so to fund their research over the last decade, but it’s been pretty steady.

And now what they have to show for it is this massive database that can help them target drug candidates, particularly in oncology and immunology, and it sounds like they have, over the last year or so, moved to be a bit more active in getting development going on their drug targets — here’s how they put it on their website:

“Unlike traditional high throughput trial and error experimental based drug candidate discovery, Compugen utilizes a broad and continuously growing infrastructure of proprietary scientific understandings and predictive platforms, algorithms, machine learning systems and other computational biology capabilities for the in silico (by computer) prediction and selection of product candidates. Selected product candidates are then advanced in its Pipeline Program to the pre-IND stage. The Company’s business model primarily involves collaborations covering the further development and commercialization of product candidates from its Pipeline Program and various forms of research and discovery agreements, in both cases providing Compugen with potential milestone payments and royalties on product sales or other forms of revenue sharing. In 2012, Compugen established operations in California for the development of oncology and immunology monoclonal antibody therapeutic candidates against Compugen-discovered drug targets.”

Which doesn’t really shout, “we’re about to make money!” But I can’t argue with the strategy, particularly the continued focus on licensing and partnering instead of actually developing drugs and running clinical trials. They might still fail, but it will cost less if they do.

You can see Compugen’s latest quarterly release here and their conference call transcript here — I tend to skip to the bottom line for junior biotechs and check how much cash they have, and how much they burned through in the last year, and on that front CGEN is in OK shape for 2013. They have enough money to invest the $16 million or so that they plan to spend this year on R&D and related activities. If business continues apace into 2014, without any notable partner or licensing deals that bring in cash, they’d have to raise some money then — but that doesn’t always hurt early stage biotechs as much as it does some other companies. After all, if you have no immediate prospects of revenue or earnings, what is it exactly that you’d be diluting by selling more shares? It doesn’t bring a hit to the book value or earnings or revenue per share, because companies like this can’t be valued with those conventional metrics. You need a telescope that can see a few years into the future — or a prognosticator like Marc Lichtenfeld — to give you a vision of the potential of Compugen.

Over the last three years or so, as they’ve been making incremental deals with pharma companies but not yet actually moving candidates through to clinical trials, and as they’ve begun more recently to focus on prodding some of their more compelling monoclonal antibodies into the clinic with the opening of their San Francisco office, the stock has bounced around in a range of roughly $3-6. Investors have seemed to be pretty optimistic over the last six months or so, though there’s always room for an abundant amount of caution — this is a $200 million drug discovery company with no clinical pipeline to speak of.

There may well be news of scientific successes and more pharmaceutical company deals, and a big deal with a big-name pharma company to drive a promising drug into clinical trials could certainly have a huge impact on the stock, but one would presume that it will be very lumpy — they’re not likely to be earning any royalties from approved and marketed drugs in the foreseeable future as far as I can tell.

Compugen’s goals for this year, according to their latest corporate presentation here, include the partnering of two of their compounds and the possible advancement of one of their compounds into initial human trials on their own (presumably to advance the compound far enough to get a far better licensing deal from a partner). If they can partner two of their compounds, particularly with strong ongoing royalties or significant milestone cash payments, that could easily impact the stock, as could a move into Phase 1 trials if they attempt to do that on their own for one of their drugs (presumably that would be their lead drug candidate, which is currently CGEN-15001 for autoimmune diseases and inflammation).

I might understand those partner deals or the stock reaction better than I’m likely to understand the science behind the company’s R&D and their potential innovation in the drug discovery space, but that’s like saying I understand Hindi better than I understand Polish — I can’t reliably order breakfast or ask for the bathroom in either language. I’ve never become particularly well informed on biotech investing, so I’ll just leave you to research Compugen on your own, see if it strikes your fancy, and leave a comment for your fellow investors below to help them along their own journey to discovery.

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RAY
Guest
RAY
March 7, 2013 10:41 am

Travis,
Other than your own are there any newsletters you feel worthy of a read.

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itsawhiz
March 7, 2013 10:50 am

Another BioTech worth a look is QCOR or Questcor, They have a product called Acthar. Acthar is an Orphan drugs that treats hard to cure diseases. The stock has been the target of short interests. It was hit heavily in Sept. due to a Citron article that stated that Insurance carriers were going to follow suit with Aethna in restricting reimbursements for prescriptions,. The stock fell from $50 to a low of $17. Since then many Insurance carriers have reaffirmed their policy towards Acthar contrary to Citron and that belief. There has been strong Institutional Buying as well as some Insider buying. Even though, QCOR has beat analysts expectations the last 9 quarters, short interest has remained at about 45%. The latest earnings were excellent, but the stock was manipulated again. The company has no debt. They pay a dividend of .25 a quarter and trade right around $30 down from their recent high of 34.74 . Analyst rank the stock a buy and recent upgrades puts a target price around an average of $44. The stock is volatile due to the short interest and high Institutional Ownership. Yesterday there was High Call volume at a strike price of $31, A large purchase for April strikes at 31 also were made as well as 29 puts sold in high volume. Their break even would be around 32.65 by April expiration. They have just purchased their manufacturer of their drug controlling the trade secret of how to extract and purify their main product ingredients which should prevent generic competition, even though their Orphan status prevents competition into 2017. With a P/E about 10 and a PEG of about .27 forward P/E about 4, if they can shake the short interest the stock looks interesting for a long ride up. In any case, taking a 3-4% divy along the way, plus the prospects of even more acquisitions this maybe worth a look.
Downside is they maybe Short attacked again, there maybe Insurance bulletins issued that would further restrict the reimbursement of the product. 90% of their revenues of 500 Million are derived from one drug. They have an investigation from the FTC on marketing practices that may affect future marketing practices and result in a fine. They are also being sued by investors because of the drop in PPS by three investors that has been combined into two separate lawsuits.
I believe that QCOR will continue to beat expectations and that the investigation, if we ever hear about it again, will result in little or no fine. The lawsuits will be settled or dismissed also with little effect. With a company that is showing growth in earnings and revenues like QCOR, it is worth a look. Truly undervalued and gem in the rough, if they can get by the short interest attention. Happy trading

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yelpik
yelpik
March 7, 2013 11:16 am

They are not the first ones. This was the big news about the new MIT Department of Biological Engineering in 1998. They are supposed to be the leaders. So this company is not the only one doing this. Ray Kurzweil predicted that MIT would have a computer that could replace the human body for testing of new drugs and compounds. This is supposed to exponentially find new drugs and cures in the future.
http://web.mit.edu/be/index.shtml

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Neal Fitzpatrick
Guest
March 7, 2013 11:17 am

Is there any respite from being pandered?

Mark
Member
Mark
March 7, 2013 11:45 am

When playing Monopoly the kids will always gang up on you, because you are the biggest threat. Risk (the game) is the same way. Try flipping the board over when you lose. Then next game they might let you win.

Roger Bond
Member
March 7, 2013 12:05 pm

They say long ad copy works, I’ve never had the patience.
And if the sales video starts and there’s no way to tell how long it is, I’m gone.

Roger

Per
Guest
Per
March 9, 2013 11:14 am
Reply to  Roger Bond

Roger, Roger. Couldn’t agree more!

BOB WILT
Member
BOB WILT
March 9, 2013 10:13 pm
Reply to  Roger Bond

While waiting for the best parts, of the presentation, I usually play spider solitaire.
Rarely does anything I hear interefere with my game.
I don’t have the patience to just listen to all that baloney.

zebra1111
Member
zebra1111
March 19, 2013 8:32 am
Reply to  BOB WILT

I have found that if I go to close the page, I’m ‘asked’ if I want to ‘stay on pg.’ or ‘cancel’. If I click ‘stay on pg.’ a written transcript appears which I can then scroll through.

George
George
March 7, 2013 12:10 pm

As Kipley already mentioned, unfortunately for this company there are many other companies and institutions that are building computational models. Additionally, high throughput screening against drug databases is becoming very cheap. I have been involved in funding both building such platforms from scratch, and sending materials off to companies providing those services with quick turn-around. So although they may be building a good model, it is definitely in competition with other readily available resources.

Sabba
Sabba
March 8, 2013 9:37 am
Reply to  George

Please name some of these. Thanks.

Don
Guest
Don
March 7, 2013 12:52 pm

CGEN is one of the stocks that Patrick Cox has been recommending for years. One of his better picks, which means it has not lost 80-90% of its value…

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advantedges
March 7, 2013 2:06 pm

I thought LIchtenfeld was a dividend guy?
Meanwhile, most investment “experts” suggest buying ETF’s for Biotechs. Is this little Israeli company included in any of the ETF’s on the market?

Risk vs. Reward,,,,,,Remember the Giant Generic Pharma company from Israel? TEVA?
Lots of hype,,,,,,,,finally came back from the trash heap this MONTH! got down to 37, now above 39 (the 50 day and 200 day respectively). Big sell off started in the spring of 2010, above 55. Ouch!

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sagenot
Guest
sagenot
March 7, 2013 2:19 pm

You have to go back over 12yrs. to find this stock’s price t/b above $7.00. What the company does now has been copied before I’ve read, but for sure do you due diligence. I too wonder how Patrick Cox can get such a high subscription price, it m/b magic? Alex Green is a very savy guy, somewhat more conservative than his competition, yet very profitable. It’s strange that
his Oxford Club would go full bore on this particular service being reviewed today.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=CGEN+Interactive#symbol=cgen;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;

Read the headlines under this stock at Yahoo Finance. 12yrs+ is a long time to wait for profits that s/b forthcoming with the type of drugs these folks develop, but what do I know?

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Mark
Guest
Mark
March 7, 2013 2:44 pm

Travis,
I’m new to you site and really enjoy your insite and writing on all of the different hype out there with the other newsletters and teasers. I’m looking for somewhere to put some money into Gold & Silver…any ideas?

Thanks for your honest take on everything!

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FarmGirl
Member
FarmGirl
March 9, 2013 6:16 am
Reply to  Mark

SAND – fast-growing royalty company run by former Silver Wheaton CFO

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sbh3117
Guest
sbh3117
March 7, 2013 5:35 pm

Hi Travis,
I agree: forget the hype. But I would suggest that interested investors take a very close look at Compugen. I have a large equity stake in Compugen. Here are the factors that have led me to accumulate this position:

1) Successful investing, in my view, boils down to an accurate assessment of probabilities. If you invest in sure things, you are often late to the party—at least as far as dramatic investment success is concerned.

2) In order to make an accurate assessment of probabilities, one must know whether one can trust management. President and CEO Anat Cohen-Dayag is one of the most honest, down-to-earth (and of course, scientifically brilliant) company executives that I have ever met. I made a trip to Israel to meet with Cohen-Dayag, Board Chairman Martin Gerstel, and CFO Dikla Czaczkes Axselbrad a number of years ago before making my major purchases. There was no b.s.—just an accurate assessment on their part of where they stood in terms of the commercialization of their products—at that point, a very mixed bag. Their assessment has, over the past year and a half, become markedly more positive. Having met them in person, I trust them.

3) Prior history of management is important! Chairman Gerstel was very successful in his last venture—guiding a tiny biotech start-up, Alza, through all the ups and downs that biotech start-ups experience, and ultimately selling the company to Johnson & Johnson for over 10 billion dollars.

4) The company has had a number of deals with Big Pharma. While, so far, Compugen has not succeeded in generating significant revenue as a result of these deals, clearly Big Pharma takes the company seriously, and more than respects their science. This is an important step in the progress of any life science company.

5) Judging by the reports from outside sources, (e.g. Northwestern University re: CGEN-15001, the company’s most advanced drug candidate). The company continues to make progress every year in both of their primary areas of interest, protein therapeutics and mAb therapeutics. In fact, tiny Compugen, just this year, successfully wooed Mary Haak-Frendscho, the ex-president and CSO of Takeda, San Francisco and a big name in the field, to be the Chairman of their new San Francisco operation. Compugen’s science is real, progressing rapidly, and has impressed multiple big names in the industry.

6) Relatively speaking, the company’s burn rate is very small, with no long-term debt and resources for a couple years, even if no new agreements are signed.

Given all of the above, IMO, the probability of Compugen’s success is very high. In fact, the company is “anticipating” two new therapeutic protein collaborations this year. In my view, it would be better to invest before the deals are announced because they are likely to drive the price of the stock up by at least 50%. I hope this is helpful to a few of your readers.

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hipockets
March 10, 2013 3:53 am
Reply to  sbh3117

Thanks, sbh3117, for your comments.

It seems to me that any organization with in-depth knowledge of artificial intelligence and access to appropriate computer time could easily duplicate CGEN’s business model. CGEN’s becoming a good investment would then rest primarily on the abilities of the top management and how far along they are with the development of their software.

Israel21c.org has an interesting article on Gerstel. (Thank you, Google!) His several ventures have been so successful that I’m almost tempted to invest in anything that he is involved in.

According to Israel21c, CGEN was started in 1993 with the goal of developing a computer that had more processing power than computers then available. Gerstel joined the company slightly after that and shifted its focus to pharmaceutical predictive software. (The computer project was successful, by the way.)

He and Anat Cohen-Dayagn were co-CEOs from 2009 to 2010. Cohen-Dayagn has been the company’s exclusive CEO since 2010.

I cannot find any recent information on Gerstel, and can find very little info on Cohen-Dayagn. I’m interested in investing in CGEN, but would like to know more about them since 2010.

Incidentally, I found nothing about patents. That sort of information would be useful, too.

All comments about CGEN would be appreciated.

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sbh3117
Guest
sbh3117
March 10, 2013 10:39 am
Reply to  hipockets

Hi Hi Pockets,

Thanks for your reply. Many of your concerns are addressed in Compugen’s latest corporate presentation, March 2013 (http://cgen.com/images/pdf/cgen%20march%202013.pdf)

Specifically:

While technically you are right that Compugen’s discovery process is replicable there is actually a “high entry barrier for others,” and it would take “years to establish (the required) infrastructure and experienced interdisciplinary team”– (i.e., Ph.D.’s in multiple biologic fields, M.D.’s, math Ph.D.’s, computer programming experts, etc.)

It is easy to do a Compugen patent search on the Web. A quick search yields 22 through 2011, and more are being issued, and applied for, every year. While the company is not forthcoming about recent patents for competitive reasons, alternatively you can see a list of the dozens of scientific publications authored by company scientists on their web site under “Research and Discovery” (http://cgen.com/scientific-publications).

A few other points while I still have the floor. In the company’s search for new therapeutics, they have re-discovered several current/past blockbuster drugs. This provided me a high degree of certainty that their approach was valid. Related to this: the company’s goal is not to develop “me too” drugs. In other words, in all areas of interest Compugen is focusing on drugs that use biologic mechanisms different from those on the market today (unlike, say, the SSRI’s–Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, all of which used slightly different processes to block the reuptake of serotonin…). And finally, to respond to a different concern raised in another comment above re: other companies/universities employing the same process (i.e. Compugen is far from unique): I know of no company using this approach that has validated their findings time and time again, through in-vitro (i.e. test tube) and in-vivo (i.e. animal testing) studies, in multiple areas of medical need. If anyone does know of such a company, please let me know, and I will look into investing there as well.

BTW, none of this is meant to be a plug—nothing is certain in life, and it is possible, no matter the probabilities, that Compugen will fail to meet its potential. I replied to Travis’s piece simply to make sure that the “baby (a company, IMO, of extraordinary promise) was not thrown out with the bathwater (the hype to sell a newsletter)”. Everyone must calculate (using their own methods) probabilities of success and failure, factor in risk tolerance, and then invest accordingly.

sbh

P.S. I will say that the last writer/blogger who doubted Compugen’s potential, ended up buying the stock 2 days later (upon closer inspection) and is thrilled with the results 😉

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1027991-show-me-the-money-adc-revenue-payloads-miss-the-mark

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hipockets
March 13, 2013 2:38 am
Reply to  sbh3117

Thanks again, sbh3117. It’s obvious you have done more than just “due diligence”. Your input is greatly appreciated.

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nw
Guest
nw
April 30, 2013 1:45 pm
Reply to  hipockets

Why was my comment removed?
Please contact me offline re: MG.
Thank you.

nw
Guest
nw
April 29, 2013 2:56 am
Reply to  sbh3117

I have reason to believe that Martin Gerstel is deceased — ironically by failure of his own technology. Has anyone spoken with him since August of 2012? Thanks.

Myron Martin
Irregular
March 7, 2013 6:15 pm

I can not gainsay the possibility of Compugen shortening the time frame for the drug development maze or even improving the results and safety tests, all I know is that in most cases patients would be better served by improving their diets, avoiding chemicals, getting adequate sleep, drinking pure water instead of sugar and chemical laden commercial products etc. Drugs are simply a CRUTCH that may temporarily relieve symptoms but rarely cure anything . There is no such thing as a “100% safe drug” they are all by definition “poisons” and have side effects that in many cases do not become apparent for years, in fact it is the rare drug that lasts for 10 years before it is replaced by newer drugs because the side effects of the older drugs have been exposed.
A healthy lifestyle is a far better solution than taking any drug.

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Gary J
Member
Gary J
March 7, 2013 7:54 pm
Reply to  Myron Martin

Myron, I agree with you and have been a pharmacist for 30+ years. People are lazy; want an easy fix so they want a pill. Big money in not curing diseases, just treating the symptoms. Diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, arthritis, etc. A healthier lifestyle is too difficult for most people. My 95 year old father who just recently died said it best to me this past summer. He said I do not understand you people. You pay $800-$1,500 to go exercise for 1-2 hours at a gym. Go buy a push lawn mower and mow your lawn for an hour – good exercise. Hand shovel the snow, hand wash and wax your car – great for the arm muscles. He said what is worse, you even pay a guy to come mow your lawn. It didn’t make sense to him.

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investor101
Irregular
March 8, 2013 9:27 pm
Reply to  Gary J

Love it, and I am reminded of an article I saw a couple of weeks ago of a lady 112! She still cooked her own meals and cleaned her own home. She said she didn’t understand the exercise hype either, if you did your housework and worked in the yard you had all the exercise you needed. 🙂

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Louis Blasiotti
Member
Louis Blasiotti
March 9, 2013 4:40 pm
Reply to  Gary J

People are always trying to save time but there is a time and place for everything. Your father was right on target. If they followed his advice there would be less heart attacks and less of other problems. Exercise is essential to life. We were not meant to be sedentary most of the day. Look at what is happening to children today who are always watching TV or surfing the net. Kids should be out running around getting exercise and fresh air. If they don’t they will pay for it in later years. Just my humble opinion.

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vivianlewis
vivianlewis
March 9, 2013 11:45 am

As the editor of http://www.global-investing.com I naturally love my newsletter best of all. We (me, the ediutor, and Patti, our current Biotech Maven) spotted a jump in the price and volume of a share we have long recommended, Compugen, a being cheapstakes (my newsletter which comes out daily and covers foreign stocks costs only $399 per year so we cannot afford Agora publications) we were happy to learn about what was up with CGEN from your site. As they say in Israel: Todah rabbah.
In one week three of our speculative share picks have been tipped also by other publications: Argus, Agora, and Barron’s, so we must be doing something right.
But this CGEN is a speculative stock whose price has grown beyond all reason and my instinct is now to reduce my personal stake and that of the readers who follow my advice.
We also write up yield stocks and buy-and-hold shares, and for start-up investors. closed-end and exchange traded funds.
While we are minnows compared to Agora (whose Bill Bonner 23 years ago funded the startup of the print version of Global Investing, then published 2x a month) we have a serious staff of reporters who analyze stocks objectively around the world. Despite Patti the Biotech Maven and her predecessor Pieter, I found CGEN all by myself. But the real money is being made for our readers now not in Israel but in following our Osaka-based reporter Chris into Japanese small- and mid-caps. Chris has lived in Japan for decades and has a Japanese wife, two more or less Japanese kids (who got us into and out of some hot teenage products, and a very American looking dog. We also have a Chinese lady covering China, a Latina (born in Colombia) covering Latin America, a Canadian resident born in Zimbabwe to cover the respectable Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK), and me, a long term resident of France who wrote about business all over the European Union, covering non-English speaking Europe (and Israel). You can learn more and view our closed positions at http://www.global-investing.com and like this publication we also offer a free version of our sub to pre-subscribers.
And now you all know that we found Compugen ages ago at an average price under $2/share to start with.

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gilliesman
Guest
March 11, 2013 2:29 pm
Reply to  vivianlewis

hi Vivian….nice to see you discovered cgen “ages ago” but surprised you are now recomending taking profits.Years ago it was certainly a “speculative stock” but suggest you ask “biotech maven” to dig a little deeper; cgen’s progress has been quite sensational in the last few years and their progress has stunned academia and the pharma world. The current interest/discovery by many is in my opinion “the beginning” and not “the end” of the cgen story. Lots of speculation albeit some of it misplaced but in the near future recognition by the more sceptical will erode at which time an increasing number of investors will become aware of the huge potential of this company to move forward the treatment of many diseases that afflict humanity.

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michael
Member
michael
March 9, 2013 8:15 pm

Hey Farmgirl,were you recommending SAND at $15 or do you mean now at $9?Yeah,it’s a great share but you may as well throw in silver wheaton(mentioned) while you’re at it;another great share.If you like that type of thing.If gold goes to $1500 then look out below.

Maybe this is the bottom in the precious metals or maybe it’s not………………….but the risk to reward is still high.I’m not saying to Mark buy equities here but a 5-10% pullback in the main indexs’looks like more of an opportunity to me.

Unconventional gas and oil is what will save the American economy(ask Porter Stansberry who was promoting The End Of America-not any more-Life’s a gas now).Obama will put that to bed over the next four years and cheap energy will change everything.Check out Westport,Clean energy,LNG and just about anything else in this space.

BHP were probably too early with Petrohawk but Marius Cloppers will be vindicated in a year or two.

The American dollar will become ascendant on the back of Eagle Ford,Marcellus and Bakken to name just some of the plays.The phoenix is coming back, as unlikely as it sounds.
If not,start prepping NOW.

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Myron Martin
Irregular
March 10, 2013 3:46 pm

I love American optimism, I just don’t share the positive outlook when looking at the fundamentals realistically. History shows that ALL Empires eventually overreach and then decline and with the status of the dollar in grave doubt as a world currency the outcome is hardly a slam dunk even if shale reserves greatly reduce the costs of oil imports.

The days of the Petro dollar are numbered as other countries like China, Russia, Brazil and others opt to trade without conversion to American dollars. Given Obama’s first term record of deficits I shudder to think what his second term results will look like.

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Sue
October 18, 2013 10:27 am

I like Sound of Compugen. Also, have a look at Stellar Biotechnologies Inc.(TSX-V : KLH) If I could find US broker I could afford (I’m Aussie) that is what I would put a little money into. Apart from that, why the hell are people so interested in oil and gas???? Because all the companies and miners are making sure that’s where the attention is!! Isn’t it about time we started looking a little further down the track? Yes, we still need some over the short term but if Climate Chang persists with ever-worsening weather events ,all the oil and gas won’t help us deal with that…. and ongoing ocean acidification (due to absorption of excess carbon dioxide) will also kill off microflora (which provide most of our oxygen) and microscopic sea life, which is the basis of ocean food chain, and will thus lead to death of our oceans and, hence US!!! So, how about we get real and invest wholesale in technologies which will help us have a future?

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vivian lewis
November 18, 2013 3:48 pm

Hi Sue, for some reason Travis Johnson the Stock Gumshoe asked me to reply to your note. First of all, regrets, but Compugen is now up somewhat from its level in March, at US $ 9.97 when last viewed yesterday.
I am share your woes about this because as I wrote on these pages I did sell a quarter of my holdings at $8. But I did keep the rest. And I do have a lot.
Second I am not familiar with Stellar Biotech in Canada but will look into it.
Third of all here is how to invest in stocks like these from Oz. You want to open an on-line brokerage account with a US or Hong Kong firm which can trade the stocks offered in the US as American Depositary Receipts. Compugen is one of them. US brokers also do Canadian stocks.
I use an online brokerage firm called E-trade which charges $8 (US) per trade. It also lets me trade in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Britain, Germany, France, and Australia but the charge is higher for foreign and they nab a lot for foreign exchange trades.
I am pretty sure that your Down Under brokers have some sort of reciprocal deal but I am not certain.
Other US brokerages which offer similar online brokerage services are:
Fidelity
interactive brokerage
Charles Schwab
scottrade
Also my Hong Kong-based China reporter Fei who is a Chinese American uses an outfit there called boom.com or zoom.com (I forget which and don’t want to bug her to find out.)
My newsletter called http://www.global-investing.com is accessible to anyone who types its address and you should be able to reach the brokerages with the same prefix and postfix.
If you want to learn more about my newsletter you can look on this site where some overlapping readers have praised my team’s work. Or you can click to my site. We have dozens of Ozzies who subscriber already; they are our 4th largest source of subscriptions but I don’t know how they trade or in what amounts.

good luck in investing and everything else
good luck on your quest.

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