BioTime, Inc. (BTIM: OTCBB) CEO Dr. Michael West was the final speaker at the World Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine Congress 2009. On May 14, he presented preliminary scientific data about his ability to program stem cells to become precursors to joint, cartilage and other skeletal cells. An in-depth peer-reviewed journal article will follow.
If that doesn't excite you, you haven't been paying attention.
This is why it should: West produces these purified cell lines using information produced by his ACTCellerate platform. As you may know, it just won the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's largest grant ever. This programmed purity, in turn, makes regulatory approval far less problematic.
This is because all but a few other researchers using his platform extract stem cells from a soup of different developing stem cells. BioTime's cell lines, however, are pure because they have all undergone the same biological programming. But I digress. Let's talk about the implications of the fact that West and BioTime can program cartilage stem cells specifically.
Arthritis is a national tragedy. It is a human tragedy. It causes acute, unrelenting pain. Two-thirds of its victims are under 65, but the odds of getting it skyrocket as we age. As life spans continue to increase, arthritis will become an even larger catastrophe. Severe arthritis almost inevitably causes other problems. These include depression and conditions created by the lack of physical activity, such as heart disease and obesity.
How big is this problem? Think of this human scourge in financial terms.
In the long term, if we could increase our GDP by 2-3% annually, we could probably solve our current deficit problem. It would certainly move the entitlement crisis meltdown out by many years.
Somewhere between 2-3% of our GDP is currently consumed by arthritis. This includes increasingly expensive therapies and lost incomes. More than 46 million Americans have been diagnosed as having the disease. With unreported cases, the actual number may be 70 million. It is America's leading cause of disability and morbidity. The CDC says it costs the U.S. $128 billion in 2003, but it is increasing rapidly.
Arthritis is caused by the deterioration of joint, cartilage and other skeletal cells. Like brain and heart tissues, these cell types are among the few that do not regenerate. With cells potentiated to regenerate these tissues, however, the cure for arthritis is at hand.
There are a few therapeutic details to be worked out yet, but they are trivial and will be worked out in clinical tests. The big breakthroughs have been made and Dr. West has patents pending on many of them. Moreover, the cost of a cure will be far less than the cost of current treatment modalities.
Oh yeah, one more thing. West also announced in Geneva that his road map includes spinning off companies to treat specific diseases, including arthritis. If you own BioTime, you will own part of those companies. There will almost certainly be other companies that license his cures, which may include cells that cure the leading cause of death today ― heart disease. I'll be speaking with Dr. West frequently to make sure you know about these companies as soon as the information is available.
I have much more information for you, but I'm over my word count. Specifically, I have personal news about International Stem Cell Corp.'s (OTCBB: ISCO) new stem cell-based cosmeceutical that will cheer the hearts of anybody who wants to look younger or make transformational profits.
I got permission from the boss, Addison Wiggin, and our legal department to accept some of ISCO's skin treatment. I was concerned about possible conflict-of-interest issues, but my wife is now using the product. The results, happily, were rapid and dramatic. More on that later.
Before we commence with the yelling and recriminations, let me remind you that Patrick Cox will be on this year's Whiskey Bar panel at the Agora Financial Investment Symposium. Haven't signed up yet? You can do so here.
Here we go…
Guys,
I keep reading about the demise of motoring as we now know it. Do you honestly think that this staple of the American way of life is going to go away anytime soon? You've got to be kidding me. That will happen when pigs fly. People will still buy used cars if they can't afford new one. You will always have people wealthy enough to afford cars no matter how expensive they are. Gas could be $8.00/gallon and still people will buy cars, gas and whatever else is necessary to be able to be independently mobile. Things will definitely change but motoring will not be eliminated anytime soon. Maybe 50 years from now we will have much more efficient vehicles but they will still be around and gas will still be used.
If you want to see a revolt from the masses on a scale never before seen, just try to suggest removing independent motoring from the American landscape! I, for one, will be one of the first to lead the charge against it.
Exactly.
No one is saying "we" should deliberately remove anything. We're just saying that a facet of life taken as a god-guaranteed right may prove to be prohibitively expensive to maintain in years to come. Unthinkable to most of us now, I know, but it wouldn't be the first time in history the unthinkable took a nation by surprise.
We also expect the reaction against this very likely reality to manifest as violence toward some group or another.
This Shooter provides me with a little cover fire…
Gary, thoughtful column from you and JHK, as always. Just a small point that may have a big, big impact on how the 'average' American ― soon to be former middle class? ― will react to having the perks of being an American evaporate before disbelieving eyes.
If you're not familiar with Robert B. Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, this is a must-read. In very accessible language, he lays out the processes that mold what we collectively believe and why, and how we behave because of those beliefs. The crucial part for purposes of JHK's theme of 'peasants with pitchforks' is contained in the section on scarcity. Just to sum up, he documents that newly experienced scarcity has a more profound affect on those who suffer it than those who have always known it...makes sense. He quotes sociologist James C Davies. This from Wikipedia:
Davies asserts that revolutions are a subjective response to a sudden reversal in fortunes after a long period of economic growth. The theory is often applied to explain social unrest and efforts by governments to contain this unrest. This is referred to as the Davies' J-Curve, because economic development followed by a depression would be modeled as an upside down and slightly skewed J.
"Revolutions are most likely to occur when a prolonged period of objective economic and social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal. People then subjectively fear that ground gained with great effort will be quite lost; their mood becomes revolutionary. The evidence from Dorr's Rebellion, The Russian Revolution, and the Egyptian Revolution supports this notion; tentatively, so do data on other civil disturbances. Various statistics ― as on rural uprisings, industrial strikes, unemployment, and cost of living ― may serve as crude indexes of popular mood. More useful, though less easy to obtain, are direct questions in cross-sectional interviews. The goal of predicting revolution is conceived but not yet born or matured."
(From the abstract of J. C. Davies: "Toward a theory of revolution" American Sociological Review 27(1962): 5-19
It seems fairly obvious a huge middle class that is taken down relatively abruptly here in the States will not go as quietly as they did in Argentina a few years ago...they've had more practice down there. I have been saying for some time now that we could see political acts that are at least as extreme as we experienced during the Viet Nam years. Personally, I think it likely they will be more extreme, because it was our ideals being challenged then, not our economic survival.
Keep up the thought-provoking messages. There will always be naysayers, but they're getting a bit shrill now...they so want to believe, eh?
Another Shooter sends a gentle and well-received rebuff:
Gary,
You live two blocks from your grocer, take no vacations to far away places and have no credit cards. What are you still living for? I agree one can live without television and even credit cards, but your life sounds a lot like that of an inmate. You and Kunstler are two of the dreariest people I have read in a long time.
You can curse the darkness or turn a light on. You're darn right this country, and world, is in one heck of a mess but I choose to not participate in the destruction. I enjoy some of the stuff you guys write but boy do you guys have a rough view of things. Surely you don't mean you never get out of that little world you wrote of; "two blocks from my job and local grocer", "no faraway vacations". What do you do besides lift a little iron and poke around on the piano. Get out of prison, man. It's time for a jailbreak.
And also, I live on 3 acres out in the country and I don't plan on having to move into the ghettos as Mr. Kunstler seems to suggest everyone will have to do one day. I have been to Europe many times and it seems that that is where you guys should be living. It's very crowded over there with tiny cars and miniature houses and grumpy people all around. Kind of like your world. On the other hand, just hang around awhile as Mr. Obama is rapidly doing everything in his power to lower us to that standard of living in Europe. We are now socialists/Marxists. Our media is now a propaganda tool of the government; our President has thrown away the Constitution and is nationalizing everything in site. Once again freedom and liberty are waging a battle against the socialists. But you know what? He's not going to suc ceed because America is spirit, a spirit of freedom and liberty with no gaggle of insecure, lying, academic fools about to dictate how we live. Tally ho.
Just so you all know: I'm not kidding when I say the most important thing in the realm of human interaction is the right of the individual not to be interfered with, to enjoy freely the fruits of his own thought and labor. In a just world this notion would be the guiding light of all political behavior, but it's an unpopular opinion you only hear from fringe elements and in frontier bars like this.
Another tenet that defines the crowd in the Whiskey Room is our familiarity with and acceptance of limits. Children stop being such when they comprehend their own mortality. We think it'd be a mite healthier if our species came to terms with notions of scarcity and extinction. No individual life lasts forever, nor does any individual species.
Ways of life and civilizations end, too. Things change and not always for the better or to our liking. That's the way of things.
So are we just a bunch of slightly soused classical liberals with a clinical, fatalistic bent?
If the shoe fits, Shooters...
Many of you out there just don't like it when we in the Whiskey Room bang the Drum of Doom. I know it gets a little tiresome to hear it, but we just don't want anyone saying that we didn't do our best to warn them.
Maybe it'd be easier coming from Bill Bonner who has considerably more street cred than the no-name punk managing this watering hole…
The International Herald Tribune says that Latvia is being crushed under a huge government deficit. Formerly middle-class citizens are out of food, says the paper. Further down on the socio-economic ladder are scenes of "Dickensian misery."
What provoked this horror, according the IHT, is a current budget deficit equal to 12% of GDP.
Wait! The US budget deficit is 13% of GDP. Sooner or later, that deficit will crush Americans too...
There. Latvia as prelude…a deracinated middle class…and those below the middle are landing in "Dickensian misery" (good one!). And I didn't say it.
It can get really bad for all us, Shooters…even those who have the means to prepare and take pains to do so. Doesn't mean you shouldn't take pains if you have the means, however.
In fact if you can, you should be doing everything in your power to prepare for economic depression, encroaching scarcity and the dumb things government will do along the way.
Allow us to help…for free. Sign up for our webinar and learn how to turn the inevitable disaster in the Treasury bubble into 71% profit…which we aim to make in three weeks. It's this Friday, May 29 at 3:00 pm…and it's free! See you there.
Before we part, I'd like to thank Patrick for tending the bar today. It does seem likely to me that some technologies will make life healthier and happier for everyone…even if we don't get to drive as much or have as many doodads from Asia on credit.
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