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As a matter of fact, Porter Stansberry withheld the name of the company. Nowhere in his promotion was VaxGen or its putative product AidsVax mentioned by name. But this was evidently little more than another tease: to make investors think they are smart and to rush into the stock with the feeling they had done due diligence. He had already given enough information for investors to proclaim on the internet how easily they found VaxGen through Google.
Porter Stansberry continued by creating the impression that his own due diligence had made him buddy-buddy with the entrepreneurs. He was close, he wanted people to know, with the company’s staff in California.
I’ve been following this AIDS vaccine company for more than two years personally. And I’ve hired a full-time medical analyst who, as part of his job, checks in with this company every week. (His name is Dave Lashmet. He is finishing up his PhD in Medical Studies, and has more than 15 years experience analyzing new medical treatments for universities, the U.S. military, and private industry.)
I’ve visited this operation in California three times myself… and I’ve sent Dave Lashmet to check it out six times. Both of us have met with not only this company’s CEO, but also its lead scientists and upper-level managers. I’ve sent Dave to do follow up research at the Canadian CDC laboratories, the University of Washington, Harvard Medical School, and Los Alamos National Labs, to check on the science behind the vaccine. Plus, Dave meets with this company quarterly to check on the progress of its clinical trials.
None of these institutions boosted AidsVax’s prospects, but Porter Stansberry remained undaunted:
Naturally, you’re probably asking yourself…
Is this really possible?
Porter Stansberry insisted that “we may be just a few weeks away from the world’s first successful AIDS vaccine” and said that, if he hadn’t visited VaxGen and talked to “dozens of doctors and scientists outside” (who he didn’t name), “I’d be skeptical too.”
But keep in mind that this technology is currently in Phase III testing. With positive results, we expect the U.S. government’s Food and Drug Administration to approve this drug very quickly. That’s the final step. This isn’t junk science. Or science fiction. It has already completed Phase I and II clinical trials. After U.S. government approval, the company can produce and sell it all over the world.
In fact, this company is in the process right now of building a production facility on 15,000 square feet of land south of San Francisco.
And this company is building a larger production facility in South Korea – a $120 million investment. At full capacity, these two plants together can crank out 1.4 BILLION doses a year. That’s enough to supply the whole world.
A $15 billion dollar drug – in the developed world alone
This company estimates it will need to vaccinate at least 350 million people in the developed world alone. (Hundreds of millions more people need to be vaccinated worldwide.) Each person will require a minimum of three doses. Then, probably several more ‘booster’ shots over the next few years.
Look at the numbers. If 300 million people in the developed world receive a total of five doses, and the company makes a $10 profit on each dose (a low estimate), that’s $15 billion. And that’s not counting the developing countries, where perhaps twice as many people will need to be vaccinated. While the company won’t be into the full production and sales mode of this vaccine until 2005, The Wall Street Journal …
There’s the journal again.
… and other major newspapers will be all over this story when the results appear in the next two months…and the share price should skyrocket long before the company ever sells a single dose of the vaccine. Do you see why this is potentially such a big deal?
It’s why every biotech company is trying to make an AIDS vaccine.
I don’t kow about you, but when I see things like “every biotech company is trying to make an Aids vaccine”, I have to wonder just how much this “equity analyst” actually knows about the topics on which he writes.
And the company we’ve been following is almost a decade ahead of its competition. It could be one of the great medical breakthroughs of our lifetimes…not to mention one of the best opportunities to make a lot of money beginning with only a small initial investment.
Of course, Porter Stansberry is not beyond caveat – but he slips it in where you would barely notice. In a plain text paragraph somewhat out of synch with the narrative, he pointed out:
“Of course, there’s no guarantee this vaccine will pass the final test. Or that the government will grant FDA approval if it does. This investment is not for everyone, because you could lose money. All I can guarantee are the facts: This vaccine has already completed the first two safety tests. The evidence we’ve seen over the past two years indicates it will pass the third test as well. The risk-to-reward ratio, therefore, is outstanding.”
With that inconspicuously out of the way, Stansberry could resume with his assertion that AidsVax would work, quickly followed by another question to carry us forward:.
The multi-million-dollar question: How do we know that it will work?