HGSI Lupus...BUY

this is another dendreon...except its years away from becoming the next Dendreon....better still..this is the next Celgene....when it was a paltry $3.69 (based on Price/Market cap)

the results announced today are for a Lupus drug....on the high dose drug 57% of patients improved their symptoms and life.

vs. 43% placebo patients....

the placebo reading should probably tell you more about Lupus and why it hasn't had a single drug approved to treat it...it's a messed up disease for sure. ...but tough placebo hurdle to jump over....a sugar pill is far more safe.

But HGSI are the closest to becoming the first to market for that indication.

This friends is a holding for the next 10 years....IRA money.

In only a few months they should finish their second large trial and be ready for registration.

Risk here is that this larger trial doesn't show the same greatness that the first trial did.

The first trial had 865 patients....that's a pretty good sample size even for a 3 armed Clinical trial. Every arm takes away from your statistical power....this is Clinical Trial Jargon for "playing with a stacked deck is cheating a bit." In this case the deck is they have 2 arms containing their drug vs. placebo....which is why they have to recruit so much....It makes it harder to prove your drug works with too few people....

Stick with me...

Companies use this tactic to do 2 trials at once. Finding a dose is just as important to a company as finding a response. You can have a drug that works but only at high toxic doses...not good for the marketing team.

Yet you have other drugs that function very well at lower doses with lower toxicity...this is the trifecta in drug world. Low Dose, Low Toxicity, Monopoly in sight.

So these guys got it with this study. They saved a ton of money...found a dose, and got a signal....with a giant sample size...making it a realy strong signal.

The 2nd trial has enormous probability of success....and it'll be done in the Fall....That's incredible!

These patients are hungry even the Lupus Foundation of America is already cheering this on....they aren't really supposed to be cheerleading the drug companies in such a way.

Anyway....they will be first to market and if the numbers are right....they have a potential market of $1.2 billion in the US?!?

Feurstein's pieces is both a must read and a source for the math on this one...READ BEFORE PROCEEDING

This is how Celgene got started...so I think it's fairly safe

As for FDA risk.

I don't think it's a major problem. Though I do not know for sure, these are probably Special Protocol Assessments (SPA for short, gotta love PhRMA)...This is a contract that the FDA makes with companies up front...to design trials taylored to the endpoints upon which the FDA actually approves a drug.

So basically if you get your endpoint you win....FDA is bound to the contract that = you make your endpoint....they approve the drug...

We can ask for that kind of information (safety data) from investor relations.

BUY IT, SOCK IT AWAY... This and DNDN are both in the same boat....They are going 2000% higher in the next decade.....if not sooner.

Position: Going to go Long HGSI pretty soon.

PS> Old Fans will notice this is no longer a political blog....but one about the markets....

PPS> New People...Welcome and feel free to leave some money in the tip jar....

PPPS> I am not liable for you making or loosing money from my blog...yada yada yada...you pull the trigger its yours...not mine.

The Internet is For Porn!*

*This line is from the Broadway musical called Avenue Q.*

First, I know. It has been over 1 year. I don't care what you think. You are back and it is partly because I chose a fairly popular search term as my title. OK get it out....
...
You OK now?

Good let me get on with it....

I can't believe people are trying to regulate the Internet. There are the Senators that think its a network of tubes or tunnels and that is how they depict the Internet in their own minds. Some people fairly high up in our society even refer to the Internet in the plural as in "Internets."

Yet these people are indeed trying to regulate the Internet. Partly because they see that they missed the boat on what appears to be one of the most profitable enterprises in the history of capitalism.

Ah... Lassaiz-Faire...

Somehow, our leaders have completely forgotten how asinine they have become in the eyes of the public... And yes... This means Democrats as well...

These old people barely know how to check their email accounts yet they are governing a world surrounded and enthralled in the Internet. So... Pssst. Guess what... They are fools ...

Why the hell would you want to pacify the pacifier? If there was ever anything that has kept people disinterested in the actual day to day workings of the Earth, it is the INTERNET.

Rather a kin to the fabled "Matrix."

In any case, there is an entire generation of people who do not care how much you feed at the trough, so long as you keep facebook.com from crashing.

Give the world bandwidth and just imagine how much you people can get away with?

Really this is in your interest. Just give the world free Internet. You will find you can generate support for anything.

Like unpopular wars...

Or...

Imbecile presidents....

Or...

Cutting poor children from health care....

While... Having the distinguished honor of being the man who executed the most people to date.

(the pen truly is mightier than the sword)


Or...

The top advisor to the president being allowed to "resign" while "under investigation."

Or....

Well you get the point... Give us more Internet and you can play all you want. At this point, any company that wants to develop an internal form of Internet. Be it intravenous, or requiring brain surgery. You will find people who will do it. Heck I am one of them.

I see the Internet as some form of meditation. IT is healthy to engage in this medium. It is healthy to use it as a method of escapism. Like to watch porn....

Seriously ... think about it. .. that is what you are doing.... looking for porn.

Otherwise, how the hell would you have found this posting?

PS... As I was spell checking this, the internet began to suggest Internet. As in.. it wants to be called Internet with a capital I...SPOOKY

Lamont Roundup

Look folks, I was prepared for another one of Stoller's pep talks.

I brewed beer and helped run Blue Jersey waiting for someone to say, "hey this is Jersey not CT."

When I heard Lieberman's speach I was pretty confused and nervous. I thought, dammit, we are not out of the woods yet. And we AREN'T. People, if you think that this story will die, think again. Think of how everybody in DC loves Joe. He's on TV almost as much as McCain...

If you think we can be complacent for a little while, think again. Get on that blogging high horse and keep at this race. Lamont's speech was simply awesome. If you stopped whatever you were doing just to listen to that moment Tuesday night, and got some goosebumps in the prossess, then blog on...

Keep on top of Joe right now. Because somehow, all the CW peddlers are selling these days is the line about how winning an election is (perhaps racist) a sure sign of loosing the next one.

Do I have to remind people, that for the last 3 elections Lieberman has been on the ticket, he has lost. (Sure 2000 was a close one). He's O'fur threee folks.

But some Democrats who take their talking points from the press will spread those lies like wildfire. Like those Zombie lies.

Somehow, whatever was put in the soup for the Lamont campaign actually turned out like soup. Not like something that reselmbes Elmer's glue. The recipe won the election. Period. No need to hangwring. Those who helped by all means gloat.

Think. If it were the Republicans who had won an election, by hacking some websites, race baiting, having crazy people helping them get out the vote, the press would pretty much get on their calloused knees and commenced the countdown ... you know (sorry for the use of metaphor as an image fabricating device).

But nay, it was Democrats who put a Democrat in line for a sitting Democratic seat!!! The GAUL OF THESE PEOPLE!!!! Getting a net ZERO Legislative advantage!!!

WE MUST BE FASCISTS!!!!

PS. Come February or so, Vote for Stoller's post for best post of the year. I think he deserves it.

FDA Shortchanged?

In the middle of this Lebanon-Israeli shitstorm, a wee story broke on NPR that barely got any attention.

David Graham is at it again blowing whistles about the FDA's borderline malfeasance when it comes to approving drugs and keeping them on the market despite data that points to these drugs being unsafe. Yes, this time it is Aventis who pushed through an antibiotic called Ketek. They got approval the old fashioned way, they said they would put a warning about potential liver failure.

This has become sort of commonplace lately. A drug is pushed through the FDA process, where the safety data may not be 100% kosher, but with a little label negotiation and a promise of a safety study, the drug is approved and gets launched into the world market. Then, a few years later, the study is complete and lo and behold, it isn't as safe (or is less safe) than first imagined.

One of the biggest causes of this is the combination of lack of funding and understaffing at the FDA to actually follow the Safety issues while the drug is in development (ie. before it is approved).

So what does it say about the state of affairs when the Head of the Health and Human Services is practicing tax evasion? Shouldn't the people who have to grovel and beg Congress for funding have clean tax records?

$1.2 million in writeoffs could probably fund 1 or 2 or even 3 (on government salaries) more people that could be dedicated to following up on Safety issues BEFORE a drug is even submitted for approval.

$1.2 million could fund 1-3 more auditors, to ensure the company is doing what it is supposed to.

$1.2 million could fund lots of things that are currently viewed as weaknesses in arguably the most important government agency we've got.

I think it's time to find a new Secretary.

What's Missing?

From this NYTpuff piece on Sen. Lindsay Graham?

Just the fact that before his righteous fight for upholding the rights of the Gitmo detainees, and his attempt to legislate the Hamdan decision, he tried to subvert said decision.

Nina Tottenberg hearts Lindsay Graham

It is the only explanation as to why Senator Graham was the only Senator chosen for every soundbite in this story about the Haynes hearings.

Which is odd given the sort-of cloud over Sen. Graham's legal ethics.

Economic good news?

The headlines are all sunny about the projected $100 billion decline in the Deficit. Swallowing Bush's line that it is due to the tax cuts, and regurgitating it to their open-beaked readers. Luckily, DeLong allows the more discerning open beaked readers (such as myself) a more tasty morsel.

In this feast of economic mealworms and such(ok stop with the bird metaphors), he gives us plenty of reasons to give this news the old gutteral distrust reaction that is typical of almost any statement about our economy by the Bush admin. Amongst the various highlights, DeLong gives us this:

In July 2003 the fiscal 2003 deficit was estimated at $459 billion; the actual outcome was $378 billion. In February 2004 the fiscal 2004 deficit was estimated at $521 billion--more than $100 billion higher than the Congressional Budget Office's contemporaneous estimate, and $108 billion higher than the actual fiscal 2004 deficit of $413 billion. In January 2005 the adminnistration's forecast for the fiscal 2005 deficit was $427 billion--the deficit came in at $318 billion. And in each case the Bush administration trumpeted the "progress" on the deficit made relative to the benchmark set by its own highballed previous forecasts.

Which makes me wonder. Since we have Congress in the mood of legalizing things that aren't. Maybe it is time they switched gears, and expanded a law that is currently on the books for Corporations to regulate the Government's own Financial reporting. Seems to me false reporting of the Government's financial state is indeed illegal if Sarbanes-Oxley were to apply to the Government.

After all, the idea behind Sarbanes-Oxley was more transparent financial disclosure. Besides the fact that our Government is run for/by corporations, these numbers that are falsely inflated do affect financial markets, including all things that are backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States Government."

So if this full faith is undermined by constant lying and unreliable financial statements by the people who matter. Aren't lots of people loosing money because of it? Aren't lots of other people getting played by this game? Sort of like the Enron days, when Ken Lay would tell the employees that everything was great, and that they should invest in the stock, knowing full well that the opposite were true.

Syd Barret Dies

Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett dies, and the AP can't get basic facts straight before going to press.

Same article:

Barrett co-founded Pink Floyd in 1965 with David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright, and wrote many of the band’s early songs.

So the AP later gets it right, again same article:

However, Barrett suffered from mental instability, exacerbated by his use of LSD. His behavior grew increasingly erratic, and he left the group in 1968 — five years before the release of Pink Floyd’s most popular album, “Dark Side of the Moon.” He was replaced by David Gilmour.

Uh no. As the journalistic source of integrity filled facts Wikipedia notes:

Pink Floyd evolved from an earlier band, formed in 1964, which was at various times called Sigma 6, The Meggadeaths, The Screaming Abdabs, and The Abdabs. When this band split up, some members — guitarists Bob Klose and Roger Waters, drummer Nick Mason, and wind instrument player Rick Wright — formed a new band called Tea Set, and were joined shortly thereafter by guitarist Syd Barrett, who became the band's primary vocalist as well.[6] When Tea Set found themselves on the same bill as another band with the same name, Barrett came up with an alternative name on the spur of the moment, choosing The Pink Floyd Sound (after two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council).[7] For a time after this they oscillated between 'Tea Set' and 'The Pink Floyd Sound', with the latter name eventually winning out. The word Sound was dropped fairly quickly, but the definite article was still used occasionally for several years afterward, up to about the time of the More soundtrack. In the early days, the band covered rhythm and blues staples such as "Louie, Louie", but gained notoriety for psychedelic interpretations, with extended improvised sections and 'spaced out' solos.

Thanks AP. Syd Barret deserves more than this!

Inskeeping With the Times

This morning Steve Inskeep of NPR's Morning Edition talked to Sen. Patrick Leahy about this wee problem of the administration being found guilty of holding folks against domestic AND international laws by the SCOTUS. You see the SCOTUS let the White House know that there is this little thing called Habeas Corpus that is sort of a basic Human Right. Anyway let's take a look at some of the choice quotes starting with this one:

INSKEEP: The Supreme Court has said that Congress can legalize some form of criminal proceedings for these suspected terrorists. On the one hand you could legalize what the Bush administration is already doing, these military commissions or tribunals. Maybe on the other extreme you could do more of a regular trial like a military court martial where the defendant has many more rights.

(as usual emphasis mine)

First off, the SCOTUS did not say that Congress can legalize anything. They said what the Bush administration did was illegal. Sort like Inskeep admits in his next breath where he says Congress could legalize what the Bush admin has been doing (illegally). I remember this broohaha in the 90's about some President lying in court about a blowjob and how this was sort of illegal and yet, Congress wasn't expected to legalize the practice of perjury.

Of course the other choice quote there is that he finds it "extreme" to offer up court martial trials to folks who are innocent until proven otherwise (except if you get caught up in this Kafkaesque nightmare).

Anyway, let's continue, Inskeep then keeps on keeping on:

INSKEEP: You're against allowing what's already been done, are your Republican colleagues on board with you.

LEAHY: I think some are... What's been done so far is the incompetance. We haven't had a single trial. We haven't had a single conviction. We're getting criticized around the world. We've had people committing suicide down there. We have had... embrasingly to us a number of times totally innocent people being held in prison.

INSKEEP: So Senator, do you want to go to the other extreme then and give them something under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. A regular court martial, where they get a defense lawyer, where they can present a solid defense, where they can confront the accuser. And other rights?

Again, why is this extreme? You just heard from the Senator (and certainly as a top journalist covering these matters daily) that there have been innocent people held without this "extreme" right of Habeas Corpus! Faster than you can say Ted Nugent, Inskeep mouths off some more:

INSKEEP: So you would want a courtroom setting where you would want a fuller hearing of the evidence...
Senator as I understand it, the Supreme Court ruling was wrong because it violated the Geneva Conventions, and the reason it did that, was because it permited the use of evidence that was obtained under coercion. Would you change that?

LEAHY: Yes, I would and we should reinstate that.

INSKEEP: ... I can hear someone saying, these are some of the worse people on earth, and Senator Leahy and other Democrats want them to have lawyers and access to the ACLU and all kinds of rights...

Obviously, Inskeep doesn't understand what "rights" are and how they should apply to all human beings regardless of color, gender, or being suspected of something. It is sort of what Rule of Law means. Letting the Law sort things out. Simply accusing someone of doing something should never be enough to remove their rights.

Luckily, Sen. Leahy puts Inskeep in his place for me.

LEAHY: Well what you're doing is reading the White House talking points in saying that. My response to that is this. You guys have done such a great job. You have had a Republican controlled Supreme Court tell you that you have been breaking the law. And what have you got to show for it? Not one single conviction.

Waste, Fraud, and Media Slant

Today's front page of the New York Times boasts this headline: 'Breathtaking' Waste and Fraud in Hurricane Aid. It is accompanied by an arial picture of a bunch of trailers, the token of the "Waste, Fraud, and Abuse" that accompanied the Aid to Katrina stricken areas. Right in the caption of the picture is this quote:

Scams, schemes and bureaucratic bungles after Hurricane Katrina have cost taxpayers up to $2 billion, including $250,000 a month to store about 10,000 empty mobile homes at an airfield in Hope, Ark.

So this is "breathtaking." Sure $2 billion in any other era of government spending and balance sheets. However, we seem to be carrying a bigger burden of almost $300 billion these days in Iraq. With very little to show for it, save the heads of some personas non gratas, (with the exception of THE persona non grata we were after in the first place).

Also, constantly rearing its head in the news is the $8 billion UN oil for food scandal.

Somehow, someway, even larger egregious example (besides the entire Iraq war) of "Waste, Fraud, and Abuse" is occuring in Iraq. Not only is there prefferential treatment in selecting Contractors in Iraq, but this prefferential treatment has cost the U.S. taxpayer upwards of $8.8 billion.

So why doesn't the rest of the "media" find that figure "breathtaking." By my calculations it should be found to be at least 4 times more breathtaking than the Katrina Kaper. Yet, in today's media, we find that there is an inverse proportionality to the quantity of ink spilled versus the level of breathtaking corruption a story lends.

The Return Of Voodoo Economics

Finally, a nice clear and concise shooting down of supply side economics. Thank you Sebastian Mallaby.

4-20

Happy 4-20.

The most wonderful day of the year!

4-20

Happy 4-20.

The most wonderful day of the year!

Military Subordination to Civilian Control

Is it just me, that finds it completely Ironic, that retired Generals are speaking against the civilian leadership (or lack thereof) about a war that was conceived by the civilian leadership?

The fear that military folks get upset about the civilians they take orders from is valid during peacetime. It is a valid consern for the fairly obvious Strangelovian reasons. However, in today's world. The military didn't necessarily want to get jiggy with Iraq. It was the neocon civilians in charge that were drawing up the plans. It was the civilians in charge that were clammoring for war. It is the civilians in charge right now that are clamoring for a war with Iran.

This turns the Strangelovian idea upside down. Military brass calling for peace or for at the very least some competence in recieving what they have asked for to keep the boots on the ground in Iraq as safe as possible.

For all the talk about "supporting the troops," and giving the "Generals whatever they need," it seems pretty obvious that it hasn't happened.

In this case, what has become a threat to our national security is not the fact that the Military has subdued the civilians in charge. Rather, the subjugation of the military by the civilians in charge has led to thousands of deaths overseas. We have a military that would rather not fight this war, or at the very least would have rather fought it on their terms. Perhaps if the civilians brainstormed the idea, then let the military brass run with the plans to do it, we would not have the quagmire we have today in Iraq.

Letting the military take over the military aspect of the military invasion of Iraq doesn't seem like a bad idea to me. After all, it would free up more time for the civilian leadership to plan for Iran. You know, cuz dreaming up and selling wars is the part they are good at.

Tear Down The Wall!

Hey Krauthammer, great idea! Its a hiuge jobs program this wall of yours. It would be a great subsidization of and an enormous economic boon to the South! Tax dollars would flow freely to the contractors that will be building this wall of yours.

One problem.

WHO DO YOU THINK WILL BE ACTUALLY BUILDING THIS WALL?

Hey Rubes!

Josh points us to the WaPo article that tells us that Tom Delay basically hung around to get MO money for his Legal fees:

An additional impetus for putting off the resignation until now was suggested by John Feehery, a former aide to DeLay and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). "He needed to raise money for the defense fund. That was the bottom line," Feehery said. "He wanted to make sure he could take care of himself in the court of law." Under federal campaign rules, any reelection money a lawmaker raises can be used to pay legal fees stemming from official duties.

So courtesy of OpenSecrets.org, your very own list of SUCKERS!.

Interestingly enough, lots of Englewood, NJ residents. Note to self, don't live in Englewood.

Big Gain for Rich Seen in Tax Cuts for Investments - New York Times

A.K.A. - George Bush's America.

"Divided Democrats"

So the Washington Post takes this Immigration bill which passed the Judiciary Committee with all Democrats voting AYE, and puts this picture up:


NICE! HUH?
So I click through the caption and this is what I find.

Of all the Democrats that are supposedly divided on this issue. You know, cuz every time I turn on the radio they keep saying it is the Republicans that are divided. You know cuz the bill passed the Judiciary committe with a split vote among Republicans (all Democrats voted AYE) - Whoops I said that already didn't I.

I dug deep, I read the whole thing, I even tried to say Heh! Indeed! But I couldn't.

The entire piece, highlights all the Democrats that are divided. It does an excellent job of demonstrating how the entire swath of our Representative Minority in Washington is divided on immigration reform. It does so, elloquently, in one simple paragraph:

But the work of Borjas and other economists is becoming a wedge in the Democratic Party. Citing Borjas's work, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) denounced the Senate immigration bill yesterday, saying: "This is clearly a corporate strategy to keep wages low. It clearly will replace the jobs of American workers."

Absolutely, it is a wedge in the Democratic party. Because you know the entire Democratic party is boiled down to Sen. Byron L. Dorgan. He IS the Party! He is single handedly the MAN.

Ahem, Washington Post and Jonathan Weissman, it is the Republican party that is split on this issue. So how about writting about that.

Cuz there is actual imperical evidence that Republicans are split to that effect.

Where is your race card now?

A while back Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT) was quick to pull the race card on Democrats threatening to vote against Sam Alito:

[They] think they own the Italian-American vote all up and down the East Coast. They don’t, but they think they do. If they become offensive against somebody with the qualifications of Sam Alito, Judge Alito, then I think it’s going to be held against them. They’re going to have to be very careful how they handle this, and frankly what bothers me if 22 — in other words, half of the Democrats in the Senate — could vote against John Roberts, can you imagine what this nomination is going to be like? There’s no reason they should have voted against Roberts. And I think Alito’s going to be just fine but we’re all going to have to work really hard to make sure that’s so.

Now we find out that Sen. Orin Hatch did in fact vote against the Immigration reform bill that just passed the Judiciary Committee that he sits on. This bill basically does the opposite of the Tancredo House bill, it lets people stay in this country rather than make them folons.

I wonder who will remind Sen. Orin Hatch that he and his Republican friends like Tom Tancredo think they own the Latin-American vote all up and down Red State America. They don’t, but they think they do. If they become offensive against a bill with the qualifications of McCain-Kennedy then I think it’s going to be held against them. They’re going to have to be very careful how they handle this, and frankly what bothers me if 6 — in other words, more than half of the Republicans in the Senate Judiciary Committee— could vote against McCain-Kennedy, can you imagine what this bill is going to be like? There’s no reason they should have voted against McCain-Kennedy. And I think McCain-Kennedy's going to be just fine but the Democrats are all going to have to work really hard to make sure that’s so.