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Luise Pearson-Bernoth's avatar

Great investment strategy by banks, given the money for the vaccines came from govts, especially western govts, able to afford the hefty prices. Is this 'wealth transfer' from nations to corporations? Our nation of Oz is still reeling from the economic damage of the whole covid debacle. Look at how many small businesses closed, homes were lost unable to meet mortgages because businesses were closed and people lost jobs and income.

The super rich can never have enough. Like the hungry ghosts (buddhist teaching) with fat bellies to fill and tiny little mouths, they suck up everything in their insatiable but never satisfied greed. Found something interesting today: interestofjustice.org

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Crixcyon's avatar

I don't make any biotech investments usually. I looked at BiopharmaDive which provides updates in the world of biopharma. I looked at their tables of biotech stocks and most stocks seems to be presenting large losses in stock prices from 50%-100%. These are companies with no products or maybe a few.

I think many of these companies come to market with IPOs (initial public offerings) and are hyped up with some drug they have developed or are developing. It's all about the future. Stock prices ramp up on promises and hope and after a few years, most of these darlings fail to deliver. They lose capital and cannot afford to develop any new drugs.

If they are partly successful, a bigger company may buy them out (M & A). The big money is made on the initial hype. Private investors have made investments in the stocks before they become public and then dump shares after the big run up.

Accredited investors (those with some big money) can often buy these companies for pennies a share or a few bucks a share before they become public. Since there are so many potholes, you almost have to be an insider and have access to information that is not readily public. Or be a good guesser.

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Hedley Rees's avatar

great post! If they were able to do due diligence on the biotech's drug development and supply chain competencies, they wouldn't go near them, they are living in fantasy world...

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John P. Wallis's avatar

KEEP SHINE LIGHT ON TRAITORS AND MURDERERS. IF YOU FUND MURDER, YOU ARE A MURDERER.

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Alison Conley's avatar

I’m some what familiar with the Bay Area and South San Francisco. I know S SF is a major hub for biotech followed by San Diego and Seattle to a lesser extent. You can see all the biotech’s when you land in the SF airport because the airport is located next to the biotech hub. Genentech was the first company back in the 60s followed by Gilead. Starting in 2000 one could see biotech growing exponentially from a couple dozen companies to a couple 100 in the S SF area. The growth of the industry is amazing considering how little gets through the FDA approval process.

You’ve mentioned several times it can take 10 to 12 years or longer to get a drug approved. . The w coast biotechs are heavily supported by venture capital companies investing millions if not billions of dollars with little return on investment till COVID. Without venture capital keeping them alive it seems like one would expect to see a major market correction. This does not sound like a good business model, pumping billions into an industry with little return on investment until Covid.

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Hedley Rees's avatar

Check out this guy again: https://councilka.org/cka_member/lorence-kim/

"Lorence Kim, M.D. is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Ascenta Capital, a biotech venture capital firm formed in 2022. Previously, he was a Venture Partner at Third Rock Ventures from 2020 to 2022. He served as the Chief Financial Officer of Moderna from April 2014 to June 2020, raising $4.4 billion of capital for the company and deploying resources to discover and advance a pipeline of 24 development candidates across infectious disease, oncology, rare disease and autoimmune disease, including the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. As of his departure, Moderna had raised the three largest private financing rounds, the largest IPO and the largest follow-on offering in biotech history. Dr. Kim joined Moderna after an investment banking career at Goldman Sachs from 2000 to 2014, where he was a managing director and co-head of the U.S. biotechnology investment banking effort. Dr. Kim’s responsibilities included corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions for the biotechnology industry, with several billion in equity and equity-linked financings, and more than $55 billion in M&A transactions."

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Alison Conley's avatar

Background is heavily focused on venture capital and banking. Seems to be primarily interested in ROI not health.

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Hedley Rees's avatar

Yes, he and others have created a mirage biologic products and advanced therapies are the next big investment opportunity, aka a bubble in technical terms :) - you and I both know Alison what happens to bubbles over time...

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Alison Conley's avatar

I just hope they don’t kill and injure too many more people along the way before the bubble pops. It is especially sad to see children sacrificed for this purpose. 🙏🙏🙏

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Hedley Rees's avatar

It's really down to Donald Trump and RFK Jr to jump on these guys from a height and stop them dead in their tracks - this is too big for anyone else to stamp out, Alison.

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The BarefootHealer's avatar

Because the "biotech" bros are the marketing arm of the nanotechnology industries (note the plural there😉). So they "sell" the concepts before the products are legitimate, which like the "bonds" market, creates a BS money shuffling event, jack up the prices, and create false demand.

Btw nanotech industry is estimated at 34B, as of 2022, with projections for 500T (yes T) by 2040. 😐🤔😯

Especially when you consider that nanotech has barely entered consciousness of the public, every body still thinks IoB wear, smart watches and Bellabeats are the brave new frontier 🙄🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

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