“WHY DIE?

“This virtually unknown company is trying to “turn off” heart attacks and cancer before they happen!

“It possesses the secret that could END crippling and chronic diseases like arthritis, diabetes, hepatitis, AIDS and more — AT WILL!

“Buy this stock NOW to go for truly explosive profits in medicine’s all new ‘golden age!'”

That’s the intro to the latest ad from Mike Larson for his Safe Money Report newsletter put out by Weiss Research — and it caught my eye not just because it was pitched as a “magic bullet” company but because it’s a biotech “revolutionary” stock that’s apparently being pitched by a newsletter that calls itself “Safe Money” and generally has focused on safety, yield, and predictability (the last “perfect stock” of theirs we looked at was a dividend-focused propane distributor for example). If they’ve suddenly developed the ability to call an early stage biotech “safe”, well, that makes me at least want to know what the name of the stock is.

So what are they teasing? Here’s more from the ad:

“A world without disease

“Imagine a world where nobody ever has to have arthritis. Or diabetes. Or cancer. Or a fatal heart attack.

“No more grieving families. No more cardiac cripples. No more amputations to fight cancer. No more fear of these other horrific diseases. The end of catastrophic massive medical costs that bankrupt families and drive insurance premiums through the roof.

“Sounds like science fiction, right? It’s not. Thanks to this small Massachusetts company, it is now a scientific fact.

“It’s a publicly traded company — you can buy its stock in just a few seconds online or by calling your broker.

“And it is the world’s leading pioneer in what will likely become known as the single greatest breakthrough in medical history — a breakthrough with the power to make early investors richer than Midas!”

Sounds exciting, right? So what’s that breakthrough? It’s RNA interference… which narrows it down to a handful of publicly traded companies, but those who follow the industry closely probably can already guess which one is being pitched by Safe Money (shhh, wait ’til the end — don’t want to spoil the surprise for everyone else!)

And here are some of the clues about which specific company they’re teasing (you can check out the whole ad here if you like):

“This company’s patented technology and products simply block the production of those disease-causing proteins — and by doing so, can “turn off” heart disease, stroke, cancer and many other chronic and deadly diseases.

“This is, quite simply, the single greatest breakthrough in the history of medicine….

“Medical and pharmaceutical giants are lining up to get in bed with this amazing company:

• The company’s Board of Directors reads like a “Who’s Who” of the pharmaceutical industry: Top executives from Pfizer and Cubist … a Harvard professor, a Nobel Laureate and more.
• Its scientists and collaborators have published their research in more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, including many in the world’s top scientific journals such as Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Biotechnology, Cell, New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet.
• These drugs are so powerful, the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are lining up to get access to the company’s technology — including Merck, Medtronic, Novartis, Biogen Idec, Roche, Cubist, GlaxoSmithKline, Monsanto, Genzyme, Bristol-Myers Squibb and many others.”

And then a few more tidbits…

• “Great product protection: The company just received approval for a patent application covering substances that halt the production of disease-causing proteins by interrupting RNA….
• Great balance sheet: Thanks to a recent deal with Genzyme, the company now has more than $1 billion in cash on hand — and zero debt!
• Great management: The CEO has been with the company since its inception….
• Great stability: Much of the company’s stock is in very strong hands. Major institutions hold roughly 40% of the company’s stock. Fidelity is the largest with 14.8% of the company’s stock.
• Great products in the pipeline: The company now has no fewer than 12 blockbuster products in the pipeline for the treatment of heart disease, cancers, hemophilia, high cholesterol, Hepatitis B, respiratory infections and more.”

So who is it? Yes, the Thinkolator chimes in and lets us know that, as some of you suspected, this is Alnylam Therapeutics (ALNY).

Which has been one of the top-performing teaser picks of recent years, up about 200% since it was first teased by the Oxford Club folks using some pretty similar language in the Summer of 2013 — though it’s been a wild ride, just this year the stock has been from $50 to $95 and back to $50 and then back up to $100. A lot of big, wild moves that biotech investors will be familiar with — though ALNY, with all its partnerships and patents, is a lot bigger than most biotechs who only have a couple drugs in clinical trials… so those moves were creating and destroying $3-4 billion in “value” (the market cap is about $7 billion).

ALNY is indeed a match for all those clues, with a great board and impressive patent protection and strong institutional ownership and partnerships with several big pharmas… including a deal with Genzyme (which was bought by Sanofi (SNY) a few years ago) that will probably result in more than $1 billion of investment by Sanofi/Genzyme into advancing Alnylam’s still very nascent pipeline of products (SNY is a large shareholder of ALNY as well).

And they have nearly a billion in cash now…. so to that extent, I guess it is “safe” as long as by “safe” you mean “probably won’t go bankrupt or have to raise money in the foreseeable future”. “Safe” is a relative term for biotech stocks, particularly for those who don’t even have an approved drug yet (even if you’re confident that the drug will be approved and create a real “platform” on which they can build a massive business… surprises sometimes happen in clinical trials).

What will happen to ALNY? I have no idea. Given the stock’s performance and news-driven moves over the past 18 months, it shouldn’t be a total shock to see it either drop by 50% or climb by 200% in the coming year, but I don’t know the technology or when substantial catalysts are likely to hit (clinical trial results, etc.)… So all I can really tell you is that Alnylam is the stock being teased as the owner of the “Magic Bullet” by Safe Money Report, and, yes, it’s also the same stock that’s up about 200% since it was teased 18 months ago by a different newsletter as having the “Fountain of Youth”. Beyond that, well, I know that there are plenty of Gumshoe readers who know far more about biotech and RNAi than I do… and I’m sure there are some ALNY shareholders out there too, so please, let us know what you think with a comment below.