01/01/10 Marco Island, Florida – 2010 may be the most incredible year in history for medical technology stocks. A handful of truly amazing technologies-in-development are likely to make headlines this coming year…and these headlines could produce huge gains in the share prices of selected medical technology companies…
You know that our bodies are incredibly complex. All throughout human history, we’ve fought to understand more about how our bodies work. For millennia, progress was slow. We made our breakthroughs in fits and starts.
Complex medical procedures – such as the groundbreaking heart surgery of 1944, was just the beginning. After that, vaccine technology took off with the development of the Polio vaccine in 1952. Soon thereafter, imaging technology began to allow doctors and scientists to take the next step and peer deeper into our bodies.
The trend continues today.
With the benefit of ultra-advanced microscopes and what’s called “molecularly precise” manufacturing, scientists are figuring out how to use our own cells to help repair vital organs like the heart. “Patients will receive injections containing… their own cells… extracted and multiplied,” BBC News explains, “[to] generate new tissue [and] repair damaged regions.”
So rather than relying on some outside treatment, the future of medicine will be in figuring out how to make your body heal itself and rejuvenate itself. No surgery. No invasive procedure of any kind. It’s this kind of promise that makes me believe 2010 will be the dawning of an amazing age of medical marvels.
Here’s another example: Vaccines that cure diseases AFTER infection.
The way doctors treat viruses now is fairly straightforward. If there’s a vaccine available, the doctor gives it to you ahead of time so you don’t get sick. In other words, getting the “cure” ahead of time is the only way to treat a virus.
This model works. Sometimes.
But new flu strains emerge all the time. These strains change, become stronger. So imagine the profit potential of a process that could kill the flu – or nearly any other virus – AFTER you contracted it. Now imagine this virus cure coming in the form of a simple skin patch.
You get the flu. You put on a patch the size of a band-aid. The flu goes away. Voila. It’s that simple. I am monitoring a company that is trying to develop just such a technology. It is one of my “6 Companies Ready to Change the World in 2010.”
Another company I’m monitoring is exploring a revolutionary process for repairing spinal cords. Their work could someday mean precisely this: If someone suffers a spinal cord injury and the paralysis that comes with it, this company’s technology could repair the spinal cord. Just like new.
“Cells from the nose may help spinal injury victims walk again,” Fox News explains. “It’s a relatively simple procedure to take them from the patient, grow more of them in the laboratory and then insert them back into the same person.”
This revolutionary little firm finally gained media and analyst awareness in 2009 due to its ongoing tests. And this company isn’t just interested in spinal repair – it has groundbreaking cancer treatments and life-extension research and tests currently underway as well. Their blueprint is simple: Save the life of the cell and you live longer…or at least better.
Lastly, imagine a simple, fast procedure that gives you a rebuilt heart functionally the same as the clean-beating heart of a 29-year-old person. That’s the full promise here. How big do you think this market could be?
Now here’s some background. In May, the CEO of the company that might offer these cures this year made an announcement about his work at an exclusive conference…
What did he announce? Cells he’s working on show the potential to re-grow cartilage. Just think for a second what that could mean for folks with arthritis. All that pain and suffering, simply going away. Now imagine the same technology applied to heart cells. That’s exactly what this researcher and his team are working on.
2010 will be, I predict, the year it all comes together.
The profits of the past 12 months that some folks have booked are nothing compared to what’s in store for the years ahead. Because it’s not just heart treatments and virus cures that could soon be available.
I’m talking about a Golden Age of Medical Marvels.
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I’m a biomedical technophile who thinks there are cures to be had and money to be made, but I think it’s case-by-case and not rising tide floating all boats.
These new therapeutic technologies are exciting, but they are still subject to supply and demand (like everything else)…and they have two additional layers of (potentially costly and deadly) uncertainty that most don’t appreciate: scientific uncertainties (e.g. we don’t understand everything and even when we think we do, there are frequently surprises that can derail a project) and regulatory uncertainties (these products have to be approved by FDA before they can be sold). With a new technology, it’s harder to predict what FDA will decide and how long that decision will take).
Until that product gets fully developed and tested for efficacy and safety and approved by FDA (so that it can be marketed), the company is burning through millions-billions and any stock increase you see is pure hype and/or expectation of miraculous cures and miraculous profits that may or may not come to fruition.
I’ll buy some-if/when I determine the science behind it is sound, the regulatory hurdles are/have a reasonable chance of being cleared, and if there’s legitimate demand (people don’t just want it-they have the insurance/money in their pockets to pay for it).
I learned how to regenerate damaged cartilage years ago. I suffered for decades with knee pain and popping sounds when the knee moved after an injury from a fall.
I regenerated the damaged cartilage to the original specifications while living in the woods with supplies I bought at Wal-Mart none of which were drugs. Using the same technology, I recovered in three days from a broken rib versus six weeks for the previous broken rib. The same techniques worked for me when I had the flu and pneumonia. I recovered from the pneumonia faster than any of the four previous occurrences, which were treated with antibiotics and cough suppressants.
Conclusion, I would not give the time-of-day for any technology from a drug company. You want to recover you health, learn the Healing Arts. Say good-bye to medical doctors and their outrageously overpriced fees and outrageously overpriced medical insurance premiums. The Golden Age of Medical Marvels arrived at my house years ago.
Patrick, Forgive me I think you’re a bit confused. You state that “scientists are figuring out how to use our own cells to help repair vital organs like the heart”. It’s been long known in the alternative medicine community that if you restore the optimum environment of pH and nutrients within your body, that cells within any organ will repair themselves and that your immune system can deal with any bacteria or virus that your body could encounter. So for example, if you catch the flu, what that means is that first your body is out of balance (i.e. pH level is below what it should be 7.3 and your immune system is not functioning optimally). This allows for the bacteria or virus to take up residence within your body and propagate thus further degrading the conditions within your body and allowing the infection to take hold. Restoring your body to optimal pH and strengthening your immune system through diet, detoxing and/or natural products will allow one to quickly eliminate the infection.
Another interesting statement in your article is “Vaccines that cure diseases AFTER infection”. If my immune system is functioning optimally, I WILL NOT GET ANY DISEASE. Also as I stated above, there’s a quite easy way of eliminating an infection. I don’t require a vaccine for my immune system to know how to fight off an infection, it’s been doing this for millions of years and quite effectively since most of us are still here. So what would be the benefit of a vaccine with all the risks related to adjuvants, etc compared to my immune system that does this for me at little to no cost as long as I take care of it?!?
I have a better suggestion. Let’s eliminate the FDA. Allow for the free market to work between various types of health providers instead of the government mandated silliness that we have now. Then we would have a better idea of whether any of these projects are possibly viable (regenerating cells for cartilage or spinal cords actually sounds like something for which there is a real market), and which ones are not (flu vaccines – is viable only through government health mandates on vaccines).