by Travis Johnson, Stock Gumshoe | January 14, 2016 2:50 pm
I’ve been puttering around and thinking about several different teaser ads recently, but this one percolated to the top of the pile when I read Alexander Green[1]’s characterization of it as the “Easiest Grand-Slam Stock of the New Year” … so what is it?
Well, the ad is for the basic membership in the Oxford Club[2], which mostly means you get their Communique[3] newsletter and updates on the various stocks and portfolios they like — it’s not terribly expensive compared to some ($49, the same as an annual membership in the Stock Gumshoe Irregulars), but, of course, we don’t recommend subscribing to a newsletter just to learn about a “secret” stock.
Do I explain my perspective on this too often? Hard to tell, since we have new readers every time. Here’s the short version, feel free to skip ahead if you’re sick of it: Teaser pitches, in addition to being sneaky or over-hyped sometimes, inflame some of the worst behavioral biases most investors suffer from. The most prominent might be “anchoring” and “post-purchase rationalization” — anchoring refers to our tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information or “analysis” we hear about a company, so if the first thing is “this will definitely make you as rich as Donald Trump[4]” you’re fighting an uphill battle to consider it rationally; “post-purchase rationalization” is sometimes also understood as “buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome” — once you’ve bought something, your brain goes into overdrive looking for justifications that you’ve made a smart purchase, including, I think, giving great weight to the newsletter report you just bought… “if I paid for it, it must be brilliant, so I should definitely buy the stock they’re talking about.” There are others, of course — most of us have to go no further than the nearest mirror to look at the most negative influence on our portfolios. My thoughts often come across as negative or cynical, which some folks get sick of, but that’s at least partly because I probably go overboard in the other direction a bit to counter those biases a little and get closer to a balanced view… but I’ll get back to the business at hand now.
This Oxford Club pitch is for their regular membership, but it also is advertising their “Forecast issue,” which probably picks out the 10-20 or so favorite ideas they have and guesses at what will happen in the year to come … but there’s one idea that they call the “Grand-Slam Stock” and drop hints about as they sell the idea, so that’s where we’re looking for our answer.
Here’s the intro:
“2016’s Scientific ‘Breakthrough of the Year'”
‘I have seen the future and it is now.’
“That was the reaction of a scientific American writer who witnessed the power of what we believe will be the scientific breakthrough of the year.
“In fact, I’d venture to say it’s bigger than that.
“Really, this may be the biggest scientific breakthrough in at least a decade… and quite possibly a century.”
See where that anchoring comes in? If someone offers you that, you almost turn off the receptors in your brain that are urging you to ask, “but how much does it cost?” “How much uncertainty is behind that ‘may be?'”
The ad letter, which comes from publisher Julia Guth, goes on to say that the breakthrough is about food — more specifically food waste that makes us use land and water[5] far less efficiently. The “breakthrough” they’re talking about is in synthetic biology, which is, at least in part, designing new foods that don’t spoil, or that grow more efficiently, at least partly as a way to reduce waste. Here’s some more from the ad:
“Synthetic biology is essentially a way to turn our regular foods into “superfoods” impervious to disease, bacteria, spoilage and more.
“For example, in February the Department of Agriculture approved the ‘Article Apple’ – a new type of fruit that does not brown or bruise like other apples. It can last months longer than a traditional golden delicious….
“In November, the FDA[6] approved a new enhanced salmon that grows faster and with less feed by introducing genes from a Chinook salmon to an Atlantic salmon.
“The result is cheaper, healthier fish.
“This new technology… making food safer, more nutritious, and less susceptible to spoilage and disease… is going to save billions of dollars across the globe.”
All I can think is, “how will it taste?” But that is, admittedly, a first world complaint of the first order.
And then we get the quotes from Alexander Green at the Oxford Club that will help us make sure we’ve identified the right stock:
“And one particular stock has his eye, ‘one that bears an uncanny resemblance to taking an early stake in Amazon,’ as Alex put it.
‘Imagine a company that engineers living cells, turning them into microscopic factories that create new products, safer and cheaper foods, and novel therapies to treat deadly diseases,’ he says.
‘Imagine the company is majority-owned by one of the country’s richest individuals, a man with decades of experience turning biotech startups into multibillion-dollar paydays.
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just click here...‘Imagine further that one of the nation’s top equity managers calls the company ‘the stock of the decade’ and likens it to investing in Apple in the ‘90s.
‘This opportunity does exist. And this month we’re adding it to the Oxford Trading Portfolio.'”
So who is it?
Thinkolator sez that Oxford’s “breakthrough of the year” stock is almost certainly Intrexon (XON)[7]
Who, you ask? This is a decent-sized midcap startup, with a market cap now of about $2 billion, but the stock has not been a headline generator unless you happen to be a biotech-focused investor or a follower of genetically modified food developments.
It is indeed a “synthetic biology” company that’s probably best understood as an outsourced R&D firm for pharmaceutical, agricultural, energy and other businesses. They try to create new stuff, have it commercialized and marketed by partners, and make their living on the research fees from those partners and their fortune, one hopes, from royalties on the hit products that may eventually make it to market. A lot of that hope is based on pharmaceutical products, since big markets like “beat cancer” are much less complex and focused on hyper-specific performance than are mammoth markets like “food,” but they are not just a pharmaceutical R&D company.
And in case you’re checking the rest of those clues, yes, the company has a billionaire controlling shareholder in R.J. Kirk… and “one of the nation’s top equity managers” did call it maybe “the stock of the decade” and liken it to Apple 20+ years ago — that was Bill Miller[8], who provided that endorsement on CNBC about a year ago[9]. It was a hot IPO[10] about 2-1/2 years ago, then cooled off a bit before making a big run in the first half of 2015, when biotech bulls were again let loose — it went from about $25 to $70 from January to August last year, and now it’s right back down where it was trading after the August 2013 IPO, in the low $20s. So far today, due in large part to the Oxford Club enthusiasm, I’m sure (it’s a big newsletter), the shares are up a quick 10%. They also are in the press for other things, of course — they presented at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference yesterday, as did their partner and fellow R.J. Kirk investee Ziopharm (ZIOP) — but nothing else seems likely to have caused that kind of move.
I know next to nothing about XON, only what I’ve read so far today after identifying the company — but there is a lot of interest from other investing pundits, someone at TheStreet wrote a fairly detailed piece on them[11] (and the hot opportunity after it fell from $65 to $45) last Fall here, a Motley Fool[12] author had another longish piece on them a year ago here when they were riding high on last year’s JP Morgan conference presentation, and StreetAuthority also got excited about it last Winter[13] (the price was still in the high $20s back then, before the big spike). It has come up in the biotech discussions that Dr. KSS[14] moderates for Stock Gumshoe, though mostly because of its connection to drug developers (like ZioPharm or Oragenics) with whom XON is collaborating.
So there you have it — a stock being touted by Alexander Green at Oxford Club with what seems like a “stock of the year” imprimatur, though they don’t use that phrasing. I am not going to be able to become an expert in synthetic biologics for you in the few minutes I have today, so I’ll just tell you that the financials are, of course, not compelling (they never will be for an early stage company that’s at least 5-10 years from the big financial opportunities that most people see for them — pharma royalties). They do have plenty of cash, thanks to the IPO and a big secondary offering back in August at $41.
On the business side, they are certainly growing — much of their revenue comes from the Ziopharm (ZIOP) collaboration, which seems to be their most advanced with one drug in Phase II (Ad-RTS-IL-12 for breast cancer), and they have 30 current collaborations going including what they call Exclusive Channel Collaborator (ECC) partnerships. This is all from their JP Morgan presentation yesterday, you can see the powerpoint here[15].
My only qualms about the stock, other than the fact that it will take massive revenue growth to make the market cap justifiable and that means you’re projecting out to when they can earn real royalties, not just the R&D and technology fees from their collaborators that are currently sustaining the business. The income statement is not as bad as I would have thought for a company of this kind, they do actually earn meaningful technology fees and they have been getting closer to breaking even, but I don’t think it’s possible for them to become the company investors are hoping for without the “kicker” of royalties. And for the most part, that probably means pharmaceutical royalties since that’s the focus of most of their work, which means they’re probably at least 3-5 years away from that big step up in revenue (since the most advanced drug on which they presumably have a royalty agreement is still in Phase 2… they also have several drugs in Phase 1 and a bunch of earlier stage research collaborations).
They do have lots of other projects in energy and agriculture[16], including that Arctic Apple and the Aquabounty hybrid salmon that was approved a few months ago, and some fuel and chemical programs, among others, but those don’t move the needle just yet on the revenue side and seem unlikely to generate rapid revenue growth — their general corporate presentation[17] includes more on those (they didn’t talk about them at the healthcare[18] conference, naturally), but no real numbers or commercialization milestones that caught my eye. They do have meaningful revenue from the Trans Ova business they bought a year ago, which is in the cattle genetics/in vitro fertilization business, and that acquisition was the source of about half of their revenue growth on the year and accounts for more than a third of revenues, but I have no idea how fast that business itself can grow. I might be missing something, but the financial/growth focus seems to be squarely on the pharma opportunities.
If I were to look into investing in this one, the first thing I’d want to wrap my head around is how unique or competitive XON is in the landscape of other synthetic biologics companies and/or breakthroughs. There are other companies that do similar things in genetic manipulation and R&D, though I have no idea what advantages or proprietary technology any of them might have… and, of course, researchers both at XON and elsewhere are looking for and trying to identify or build the next big thing every day.
I like the business model — having their partners cover most of the operating expenses with technology fees and R&D reimbursement and getting back-end royalties or joint venture revenue if the products come to fruition — but, given that there’s competition in a lot of these areas and they don’t seem close to meaningful royalty revenue yet, I’d need to have more than that generic “like the model” feeling before the $2+ billion market cap makes sense. In the short term, they are in fine shape as far as their balance sheet goes (lots of cash, no debt, can easily cover a couple years of work with their cash on hand) so the risk is likely that they trade with the biotech sector, and more specifically could easily take a big hit if Ziopharm has a setback in their clinical trials (maybe they already have, I haven’t looked at those details), or if they make an acquisition with that cash that turns out badly.
So that’s my quick take on Intrexon — cool technology, lots of moving parts, nice business model, I have no sense after my quick read as to whether it should be worth $2 billion or $10 billion or $500 million. I’ll hand it over to you now, dear readers — what do you think?
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Up huge today on a nice reversal. quite the range.
A secondary at $41. Isn’t that when they dust off a number of shares sitting on the ‘shelf’ and offer them to the unsuspecting general public. When and how much did they raise? Any idea how long it’ll last? So if nothing is imminent, how do touts sustain their client base?
They raised about $200 million. They raised it because they need it, presumably, it was the company raising money and not so much the insiders or early investors selling.
The IBB imploded, check out the chart on it, Oxford can’t move something with a marketcap like this.
XON already hit the newsletter’s stop loss and is out of their portfolio.
they were stopped out of XON on 1/12/16.
With the recent headlines on GMO labeling and I dare say whether GMO food is poison or the way to save the Earth (I believe it is poison as Ethos seems the way to save the earth http://www.myethoshealth.com/).
Love to know what Gummies feel about eating Factory Beef or Factory Veggies versus Grass raised beef and CSA type Organic veggies. I say CSA type versus the FDA’s version of Organic which even I am completely lost about.
GMO food can be a godsend or a hazard. i.e. A salmon with a gene from another salmon is probably fine and will have no repercussions except on Mother Nature when to big ones eat the small ones and one type might be knocked out. They will still be salmon.
But if you use a gene from a peanut to give nitrogen fixing properties to corn, You could well have some one et an ear of corn and die of a peanut allergy.
It goes without saying hat we all should have an absolute right to know exactly what we are eating. GMOs should be labeled and that label should include the source of the gene alteration.
FYI, a little birdie just told me that the day before this ad campaign started in earnest XON was actually sold in the Oxford Trading Portfolio on a stop loss (sold on Jan 12, I saw the ads starting Jan 13).
Would be funny if it weren’t so ridiculous — why have a tight stop loss on a stock like this if you’re so convinced it will be among the best performers of 2016 that you use its story as the linchpin of your marketing? Not that stop losses are necessarily evil (I’m testing them myself), but either that’s a really tight stop loss or they recommended the stock a while ago and it was very close to stopping out before the ad was spooled up to run. Could just be bad luck, if they bought at $30 on Jan 1 and hit a 25% stop loss at $22.50 almost immediately, I don’t know.
I don’t know what stops they use, and I don’t subscribe so I can’t confirm the “stop loss” sale. The stock has now fallen 30% three different times since the August highs, so there have been plenty of chances for folks to get shaken out — whether there’s going to be another drop from here, I obviously don’t know. I checked Tradestops.com, and their current “smart stop” (assuming a purchase today) would be close to 50%, with a stop around $9 and change.
It’s called Mr Market and they are very disciplined. IBB hammered. They aren’t market timers and put out a pick every month so you are bound to get slammed occasionally. They are my favorite newsletter outfit by far.
I don’t object to them stopping out of the stock so much, everyone’s got their own strategy for that and stop losses are making everyone who uses look brilliant over the last six months… but I like to poke a bit at them for emailing out a promo implying that this stock is their best idea of the year when it was presumably already either stopped out or within a few percent of being stopped out.
Still, it’s nowhere near as absurd as the “gasoline from oil” pitch for Sasol that they’ve been running for a different Oxford newsletter since the Summer of 2014 and I got again just this week. I don’t know if Oxford Resource Explorer uses stops, but they haven’t stopped out of using that promo over the past 18 months as the company has postponed their potential gas to liquids plant and the stock has fallen by about 2/3.
And, of course, we hear about this happening a few times a year — a big, blustery promo goes out… and by the time it makes it through their lawyers or marketers or whoever else the stock has been “sold” and is no longer in the portfolio. This isn’t the most egregious example, for sure. Sometimes the Motley Fool has used the same promo for three or four years with no change (though they also pretty much never sell, so they don’t have to worry much about stop losses).
I remember those apples that don’t bruise or go bad as a kid. My mother kept them in a bowl, they were made of plastic. Sorry Travis, couldn’t resist.
All in the business must know that Sasol had pulled the plug on their Lousiana project, becbeause of the lo price of oil. In the write-ups; no mention of the huge capital costs that will be allocated to the price of their “gasoline”
It has been implied that thee project is ongoing.
Their process is nothing new they just increased the scale of the project?
SASOL is a very large SA co in the energy business.
HOLY REPLICATOR JAMES TIBERIOUS KIRK!!
The January Communique was released to Oxford’s readers on December 14. On January 11, XON tripped Oxford’s 25% trailing stop and so is no longer in the Trading Portfolio. Ouch!
Guess they picked it right at $30 or a few cents higher, then — wonder how many of their subscribers are mad about selling just before Oxford’s teaser ad push helps the stock to jump back up by 15 percent.
And the real question from the cynic: if the stock triples this year (I’m not saying it will, of course), will they take credit for that gain it when they’re putting out their promos for 2017?
Travis:
Fortunately for me (or maybe not), not all of the Oxford subscribers were stopped out of XON because of 1) the timing of when it was purchased, and 2) some of us realized a stock that volatile (which Alexander Green himself acknowledged in the recommendation but said it was still worth the shot) deserved at least a 30% stop loss which I used. So I was still invested (a middling size investment) when the stock roared today almost 18%. And no way did their email campaign have anything to do with it (although your newsletter solution might have helped at the end of the day).
Motley Fool had an interesting angle tonight on why it soared so high in one day. Their thesis is available on the Yahoo Finance page. Yes the JP Morgan conference presentation had something to do with it, yes again the IBB and XBI rebound had a lot to do with it by raising all ships, but Motley claims the real source of investor enthusiasm, which was apparently talked about in the hallways of the JPM conference, is their acquisition last year of Oxitec. That company has a treatment for the Vika virus in development which is scaring a lot of people now that the CDC is discussing a travel warning to pregnant women to not travel to Brazil and other Latin America countries where the mosquito and that specific virus is endemic. In fact, I separately heard a radio news report earlier in the week that a pregnant traveler had the disease in the US this week, but only because of a recent trip to Brazil. The news report was “reassuring” Americans that the virus does not spread from human to human and the type of mosquito that carries the virus does not exist in the US, or anywhere close.
Green and the Oxford recommendation also mentioned the Vika virus as a wild card that could drive the stock higher, even though no one knows if Oxetic was close to a “cure” or treatment or not. To me, this situation seems eerily similar to the investing fever from 2014 when the Ebola virus burst onto the headlines. It did not matter whether a company had a drug in trials, let alone approved. The stocks soared anyway. That is exactly what today felt like.
Personally I am still way down on my initial investment (18% gain after falling 30% does not retrace to only 12% down despite my wish the math worked that way), but I believe biotech and healthcare are way oversold this year anyway, and as a long term speculation, I do think the Intrexon story is worth at least a small investment.
And for those previous comments about factory produced food vs natural, it depends upon your definition of natural. The salmon and other biotech engineered food products are certainly GMO, but the salmon can grow and eat in environmentally friendly farms if we wish, will not need antibiotics or other supplements, and except for the specific genetic modification that improves their metabolism by essentially cross-breeding the two salmon species, they could be considered “organic”.
Will there be side effects long term? Will it taste good (I assume the company has hired taste testers)? I don’t know, but in my view what they are doing is not much different than cross-breeding species of livestock and plants to improve output or disease resistance that man has done since the days of Mendel (and probably long before). Their science is just helping natural reproduction along a little more quickly.
Thanks for the thoughtful comments — I generally agree and think many GMO advances are, on balance, worth the risk and expense. Though wild salmon sure tastes better than any farmed stuff I’ve ever had.
I didn’t publish until 3pm or so, so we didn’t probably influence this one that much — it’s too large and liquid to make that kind of move easily just because of some attention from a newsletter pitch, and volume was heavy in the morning, so perhaps you’re right about the virus rumors. Good points comparing that to the Ebola craziness if that is indeed today’s impetus, will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
I am a long time oxford subscriber and greene is usually a conservative investor who usually doesn’t recommend biotech companies and the ones they did well…celg (which was their only stock that they gavw a 35% stop losa instead of the typical 25%), and 2 other picks with one later being bought out. I didnt buy xon shares but instead sold cash secured puts on xon.
I am a long time oxford subscriber and greene is usually a conservative investor who usually doesn’t recommend biotech companies and the ones they did well…celg (which was their only stock that they gavw a 35% stop loss instead of the typical 25%), and 2 other picks with one later being bought out. I didnt buy xon shares but instead sold cash secured puts on xon.
I am replying to my own comment to clarify what Oxitec / Intrexon is doing related to the Vika virus, since my comments on Jan 14th or misleading. The Vika virus is even more in the news now than in mid-January, and apparently the carrying mosquito does exist in 2 US states, and could spread to a closely related mosquito species in 10 other states. The virus can also be spread via blood transfusions so will impact the donor process in the US for certain.
Oxitec developed a genetically modified male version of the mosquito species that carries Vika, and after mating it results in no offspring because of a lethal gene that prevents survival. So its “cure” is not a cure at all and is only directed at population control. Its much less toxic to people and the environment than pesticides, but of course it is a GMO species.
This same mosquito species also carries dengue fever (also a virus) and that was the original reason for funding this project – apparently as many as 500 million cases of dengue fever occur now every year and its prevalent in 110 countries. So this mosquito was a potentially profitable target even before Vika appeared.
Only male mosquitoes are “manufactured” and released since they do not bite (I did not remember that fact). There is also a genetic marker embedded in the mosquito that allows easy visual identification of where the released mosquito has traveled after release, and what % of a remaining population is the infertile one. Pilot programs have already been successful in a few cities in Brazil, with more than 90% of the bad mosquitoes wiped out in the neighborhoods where the strain was released. The Brazilian government 100% funded the factory in the UK where Oxitec is making new mosquitoes as fast as they can.
Intrexon is not going to get rich overnight because of this one product (although they do own 100% of Oxitec in contrast with other collaborations they have), but its likely to keep a floor under the stock.
I suspect Oxford has been stopped out of so many of their recommendations that someone should tell them to stop making recommendations.
Quincy:
I have to add one more humorous and embarrassing story about an Oxford recommendation from late 2014. When the August and September 2015 market correction was in full bloom, Alexander Green was asked which of the stocks in the Communique portfolio was the one he would “hold forever” in the midst of the downturn. He actually allowed the company to publish his pick – Illumina (a company I have owned a long time and before the 2014 Oxford recommendation for it).
What happened? again in less than 1 month? They were stopped out of it, I think on Oct 6th when the stock fell from the previous day close of $163 to $133 on the open (their stop was $152). Why would anyone have a tight stop loss on a stock you said to hold forever? That is when the discipline of stop losses becomes just plain stupid. And if I remember correctly, getting stopped out of Illumina was the final straw that led to Oxford revising their stop loss policy from an intraday price to instead the close price. It would not have made any difference on Illumina anyway, but they decided the impact of HFT has made it impossible to rely on intraday prices anymore. I believe they are certainly correct on that observation.
Its easy for me to be critical of their stop loss discipline, especially on great companies, but it is that unwavering rule that allowed them to outperform almost all of their peers in 2008, 2009. That is documented. Lets hope we don’t have another 2008-2009 crash in our remaining lifetimes.
Funny, but I am amazed at some companies stock quotes today, that are lower than 2008-2009. Something is amuck for sure.
CLLS- Cellectis S.A. Announces Calyxt is New Name for Its Plant Sciences Subsidiary Business Wire Cellectis S.A. May 4, 2015 Cellectis S.A. (Paris:ALCLS) (Alternext: ALCLS – Nasdaq Global Market: CLLS) a pioneering gene-editing company employing proprietary technologies to develop best-in-class products in the emerging field of immuno-oncology, today announced that it has changed the name of its subsidiary, Cellectis plant sciences, Inc. to Calyxt, Inc.
The name change is part of Cellectis’ effort to further distinguish the parent company’s focus from that of it subsidiary. Gene editing is the common base of the two companies: it is used by Cellectis in the development of new and innovative product candidates for treatment of cancers, and by Calyxt in the development of improved crops for consumers with healthier characteristics. You may begin your DD at http://tipranks.com Long Stockgumshoe, Gummunity and CLLS. Best2You-Ben
I lost $35K in 2011 as a result of the 35% STOP LOSS RECOMMENDATIONS of GREENIE and KAREEM ABDUL THE JERK. Limit your positions investors if you follow these guys.
Greenie’s claim to fame Intuitive Surgical and Netflix.
and Enron!
“Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome” is a new term for me. I’ve known it for years as “cognitive dissonance”.
Cognitive dissonance, as I understand it, is just another way of saying “inconsistency” — applies to a lot of behavioral biases.
keep up the good work
Tight stop losses
Back when I was an Oxford subscriber, they would suggest moving stop losses up when SP went up, to “lock in” a profit at higher SP
ie
think it was DDD (3-D printing…a long while ago)
buy at $18, SL at $15. Q results came out 2 weeks later, blew the barn doors off, SP popped to $28…move SL to $25 so an investor has additional $10 per share SL “protection” and so on.
SP dropped back to $20, formed a bottom, reload and next Q same thing happened.
Not a bad strategy in a raising market
I don’t usually see XON in the news, although the coverage seems positive… will check this out more closely https://www.tipranks.com/stocks/xon
Hi Mike, and thanks for sharing. If you’d like to join the BEST Biotechnology Investors Team on the planet here is a link to the current discussion on the subject: http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2015/11/the-manchurian-candida/ Enjoy your holiday and beyond. Hope to share with you there. Best2You-Ben
If you could Identify this company, I’d be most appreciative. Thanks very much.
Intellagent
Does thus help Anthony Vlamis? http://www.intellagentapp.com/ or this?
https://www.google.com/search?q=Intellagent&oq=Intellagent&aqs=chrome..69i57.1192j0j1&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8#q=Intellagent&nfpr=1 Please let advise….Best2You-Ben
Hi all, I have no opinion to offer on $XON at the moment, but the teaser copy brought to mind one of my conviction stocks: Cellectis SA, symbol $CLLS on the NYSE. The company is also listed on the French exchange. I have a long position in this stock, for me the position is significant. Recent price is $24, below that of their IPO last year.
Cellectis also specializes in gene modifications for medical and foodstuff applications.
I have published on other threads considerable due diligence on CLLS and suggest to those inclined towards this sector that it might be interesting. My comments are on Dr. Kss’ threads, which i recommend strongly to you.
MEDICINE Cellectis has proprietary gene editing technology that has been applied to humans. It has major partnerships with Pfizer and Servier. Pfizer has taken a 10% stake in the company and was recently in talks to acquire it. Servier is private and is the largest French pharmaceutical company. If successful, Cellectis’ approach (“allogenic”) will result in off-the-shelf medicines for cancer and whatever other targets they develop. This is in contract to the approach of most other cancer gene therapies (“autologous”), which are really custom, one-patient-at-a-time therapies which require cells from the patient.
FOOD AND PLANTS For agricultural products, Cellectis has a wholly-owned subsidiary Calyxt. Calyxt has a major relationship with the University of Minnesota and has announced a commercial partner for their alfalfa product. They have targets in many major foodstuffs, such as potatoes, soybeans, and corn. According to company copy, their modifications are such that they fall short of being classified as GMOs.
I will check Intrexon and see if I can offer some opinion on it.
CLLS- Thank you HN, the current biotechnology thread lead be ZKSS = http://www.stockgumshoe.com/2016/01/cyto-who/
XON April 21 drops a bundle to 27.10. These are the guys who want to kill all the mosquitos in Africa, Asia, North and South America by introducing gene-modified mosquitos who shoot duds. . I opined previously that I think it is an improbable and somewhat dangerous strategy with unknowable consequences and that I could not invest in it. Seems like some folks in Florida don’t like the idea either.