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Biotech Investing Buff Just Made $1.1 Billion Profit in 8 Months – Here's How

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning • @TaraKateClarke -

Biotech Investing

With a net worth of $12.6 billion, Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, is the world's richest doctor, the richest American in the healthcare industry, and the 96th-richest person on the planet in 2015 according to Forbes.

And just in August, the 63-year-old became $1.1 billion richer -- from a move he'd made only eight months prior, according to Bloomberg...

Here's Soon-Shiong's story - plus five ways you can cash in with biotech profits of your own...

Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin Plan to Cure Aging with Biotech Venture

By , Associate Editor, Money Morning • @KyleAndersonMM -

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Google Inc.'s (Nasdaq: GOOG, GOOGL) Larry Page and Sergey Brin have taken anti-aging to a whole new level.

In 2013, Google founded the biotech company Calico along with Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) Chairman Arthur Levinson.

Rather than focusing on diseases, Calico was founded to cure aging. According to Page, expanding the human life span by as much as 100 years is the company's goal.

Thanks to new breakthroughs, they may be closer than you think...

60 Biotech Companies to Go Public Before April 1

By , Defense + Tech Specialist, Money Morning • @Robinson_STI -

biotech companies

Biotechnology is tech's fastest-growing sector. In fact, there are more than 100 biotech companies set to go public in 2015.

Of those 100 IPOs, 60 are expected to launch before April 1. So you have to move fast to ride this $320 billion biotech wave.

Those IPOs are all but certain to keep the biotech bull market going through the year. Biotech stocks have soared 290% in the past five years. That's more than triple the S&P's 88%.

And biotech IPOs are not the only catalysts that will lift biotech shares across the board in 2015.

Why the Pentagon Wants to Use This Penny Stock to Cure the Flu

By , Defense + Tech Specialist, Money Morning • @Robinson_STI -

penny stocks

Standard flu vaccine technology is hopelessly outdated. Many vaccines are still grown inside chicken eggs. There's a very real threat that a new strain of flu will hit - one for which there is no vaccine. (That's what happened with SARS.)
Small wonder DARPA - the shadowy research and development arm of the Pentagon - just jumped to fund the work of this tiny biotech firm...
The company is pioneering a ground-breaking new process that uses tobacco plants instead of eggs to produce the recombinant proteins that are the key to vaccines. This dramatically cuts the time it takes to manufacture and can be done 10 times cheaper than a conventional facility.
In other words, this penny stock firm is revolutionizing a $30 billion industry...

Meet the Biotech CEO With a $30 Billion Breakthrough

By , Defense + Tech Specialist, Money Morning • @Robinson_STI -

There's a deadly problem with one of the nation's major medical markets - vaccines.
The technology we use today to prevent diseases like the flu, chicken pox, and polio is hopelessly outdated.
It still relies on the delivery of a portion of the actual virus to the patient to develop immunity. Some of these agents are still grown in chicken eggs, just like they were back in the 1930s. And the vaccines themselves or their additives can still make people sick.
But what if you could develop a whole new class of vaccines that were actually safe using a synthetic DNA? Better yet, what if you could vaccinate yourself against HIV, cervical cancer, leukemia, and hepatitis?
The payoff would be tremendous...

The Next Profit Breakthrough: Synthetic Biology

By , Defense + Tech Specialist, Money Morning • @Robinson_STI -

Drug, chemical, and biofuel firms are relying more than ever on artificial fragments of DNA to invent new products. It's called synthetic biology.

For example, teams all over the world are now in their labs looking to create novel biotech compounds or drugs by inserting synthetic DNA into cells, either living or artificial. They're also growing new microorganisms that yield biofuels to be used in lieu of oil.

Trouble is, the process is so complex that it can take days to synthesize these man-made genes, usually in small batches.

Not only is it time consuming, but it requires the use of costly robots and other advanced gear. Simply stated, if someone came along with a breakthrough that greatly speeded up the development of synthetic genes, it could affect several industries at once, not to mention its own value in the market.

Allow me to introduce you to Gen9 Inc. The company is blazing a trail in the development of scalable technologies for synthesizing genes.

Now, Gen9 is a small, new dynamic company. And its potential is huge.

It was formed last summer around a unique new device that greatly speeds up the process of creating synthetic DNA.

Even better, it cuts the cost of that process by leaps and bounds.

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Letting Biotech Companies "Patent Nature" Could Be a Huge Boon for Investors

By , Defense + Tech Specialist, Money Morning • @Robinson_STI -

The U.S. Supreme Court has just agreed to hear a landmark case that could have extreme money-making ramifications for biotech companies.

Next June, the nine justices are expected to settle - once and for all - whether companies can patent human genes in the United States.

The Patent and Trademark Office has been issuing patents on DNA for nearly 30 years, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Roughly 4,000 of the 22,000 human genes now have some form of patent.

But the American Civil Liberties Union has challenged the practice in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics. Now that case will go to the highest court in the country.

At heart, the legal question sounds simple: Does Myriad Genetics Inc. (NasdaqGS:MYGN) have the right to patent two genes that signal whether a woman is at higher risk of getting cancer of the breasts or ovaries?

Myriad of course did not invent or create the breast cancer predisposition genes, referred to as BRCA genes.

But it did create something called the BRACAnalysis test that looks for mutations on these genes. Those mutations are associated with much greater risks of breast and ovarian cancer.

Usually firms cannot get that kind of market protection for something that is clearly a product of nature. But in this case, Myriad has developed a process of extracting a gene that makes the resulting molecule novel and chemically different from DNA that naturally occurs in our bodies.

And, after all, it took Myriad 17 years and $500 million to develop the test. Without barriers to entry, other firms could simply come in, take advantage of all that costly effort and sell a knockoff for less money.

Even if that weren't illegal, it's obviously unfair.

Let's dig into the case and why it matters to you...



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Three Biotech Stocks to Buy Now

By , Contributing Writer, Money Morning -

If you're looking to hit a home run over the next 12 months, your best bet for stocks to buy now is biotechnology companies - especially those focused on cancer research.

Here's why: biotech stocks have been in a stealth bull market in 2012.

In fact, the values of the 230 publicly-traded biotech companies tracked by the BioWorld Stock Report have jumped by an average 38% year-to-date.

The third quarter was especially hot. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index rose 10% over that time frame and is up a healthy 37% this year.

And, nothing is hotter than companies focused on the battle against cancer.

Take Medivation Inc. (Nasdaq: MDVN), for example. This California-based biotech has jumped from $23 to $46 a share, largely on the approval of Xtandi, its novel prostate cancer drug.

Thousands of other experimental drugs are going through various stages of clinical trials, and the largest category in the pipeline is cancer drugs. With that in mind, it's safe to say that if you're looking for a stock with big upside potential, cancer-driven biotech stocks should be high on your list. Biotech Stocks: Cancer Research is Paying Off

A cancer diagnosis was once a death sentence -- especially if you were diagnosed with the disease in its late stages.

But, both government and industry have spent vast sums in the last decade researching how cancers develop and spread.

And now all that investment is starting to pay off -- recent clinical trials and treatment breakthroughs show real promise.

The newest cancer research focuses on three fronts.

To continue reading, please click here...

These Five Biotech Firms Will Literally Change the World

By , Defense + Tech Specialist, Money Morning • @Robinson_STI -

The biotech industry is getting ready to transform the human race as we know it.

It will help us cure cancer, rid us of the scourge of Alzheimer's, and make 100-year life spans routine. Not only that, but we will lead much healthier and more intelligent lives as a result.

I've followed this field for more than 20 years and have never seen so many advances coming so quickly.

Of course, a big part of that stems from the fact that we have passed the tipping point in other forms of cutting-edge tech the biosciences have adopted -- faster computers, better sensors and tiny digital circuits.

And now that we have a complete map of the human genome, biotech has reached critical mass. Add it all up and you have an unending series of advances that will redefine life in the Era of Radical Change.

To help make sense of the profound impact this will have on our lives, I have compiled a list of five firms that are pushing biotech into new realms.

Each has accomplished a major breakthrough. Take a look...

Biotech Firm No. 1: Spinal Cord Therapy

Talk about a brilliant breakthrough. InVivo Therapeutics Holdings Corp. (OTC:NVIV) has a radical new way of treating spinal cord injuries (SCIs).

And it's moving fast. The firm expects to get FDA clearance to begin human trials later this year.



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How Online Gamers Can Give Biotech Investors Big Gains

By , Defense + Tech Specialist, Money Morning • @Robinson_STI -

A group of online gamers are onto something big. Very big.

So please don't think these "hobbies" are a complete waste of time and energy.

An online game called Foldit has actually helped to deliver a medical breakthrough that could change the future of biotech research.

How are these two connected?...

It starts with proteins, which are essential to every aspect of our daily lives.

As it turns out, medical research has revealed that serious ailments like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's are linked to proteins - specifically to improperly folded proteins.

Here's why: Think of proteins as tiny biochemical machines that assemble themselves to do certain jobs. The process by which proteins take the shape that governs their activity is called "folding."

Now just imagine how much healthier the human race would be - and how much longer we could all live - if we could make improperly folded proteins fold properly.

It would change the face of medicine.

How Foldit Could Help Change the World

No, the Foldit players didn't go that far. But they did push biotech in an exciting new direction.

Foldit allowed the gamers to "play" at arranging proteins on their home computers. The goal was to win the game by finding the best-scoring combinations, those that used the least amount of energy.

An article in the Jan. 22 online edition of the scientific journal Nature noted that researchers kept the game interesting by posting new multicolored puzzles for the gamers to solve.

In video interviews the players reported a near-obsession with the game.

Not to mention pride in the outcome - they helped the researchers redesign a protein with a nearly 1,700% increase in activity.

This is a classic example of the type of technology that will transform our lives in the Era of Radical Change.

It means that in homes and apartments around the world, gamers could go online to help create The Next Big Biodrug.

For investors that means a new field with lots of opportunities in the near future when scientists begin to work directly with proteins to repair or eliminate damaged cells that can cause disease.

Who knew curing cancer could be so much fun?

They may be able to design personalized and more-precise drugs. They could even stop a deadly flu epidemic in its tracks.

But don't take my word for it...



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