After
13 years of writing about emerging companies both big and small, it amazes me
how few have actually accomplished much. That’s why it’s refreshing to come
across a company that has not only a real product but real management with skin
in the game and a real future.
Someone
contacted me a week or so back and insisted I take a look at a tiny company in
the medical device field. That’s not really something I am an expert on but
what I was told was intriguing enough that I did look into the company. It has
a real product, real management and a real future. In fact, they seem to have a
cure for cancer. At the speed of light.
The
company is named Theralase Technology
(TSXV: TLT).
It is the lovechild of Roger White, company President and CEO. His mother was a
former nurse and his grandfather was a doctor. Roger’s father was a watchmaker
and jack-of-all-trades.
White
started working for him when he was 7, learning clock repair and watchmaking.
When White was 10 he took apart his own bike just to see how it was made. He
was quite good at disassembling the bicycle but when it came time to putting it
back together, he wasn’t so good. But as is so often the case in life, he
learned a lot more from his mistakes than from his success.
Torn
between the engineering side of his father and the medical side of his mother,
Roger White graduated as an Electrical Engineer in 1986. But in 1993, his
father called him to tell him about an interesting technology he had discovered
while on travels in Belgium. It was an “invisible laser” that could double the
speed of healing and decrease the pain of injuries.
Roger
White traveled to Brussels to meet the inventor of this laser light. The man
who invented the specific frequency of laser light explained that the building
blocks of connective tissue, fibroblasts, have a 100% increase in cell division
when exposed to this particular light. This cuts healing time in half and
reduces pain without the use of medicine or surgery.
White
fell in love with the concept and bought the rights to the technology in 1994
after meeting with physicians and scientists familiar with the process. He
formed his own company to research the product and began manufacturing it in
1995. By 2000 he launched his first medical device product, the TLC-1000. 1200
of these units are in the field and are providing cash flow to the company
today.
Theralase
is the perfect company for a public financing. We forget that the real purpose
of a company selling stock is for it to be able to grow at a faster rate than
just by internal financing. A big investor heard of the company and convinced
them to accept a big financing. That financing took place in November and added
over $3 million to the company’s coffers.
Theralase
plans on using the money to introduce a new model of the laser light medical
device by September. In the past Theralase sold the devices to the medical
industry for $16,000. They have made a deal with a leasing company. The leasing
company will provide the units to doctors on a 3-year lease for $500 a month.
That will make the decision to use far easier for doctors. The leasing company
gives $16,500 to Theralase upon signing the deal with the doctor. When the
3-year lease is complete, Theralase gets the $500 a month.
It’s
pretty much a no lose deal for everyone. Experience from units in the field
suggests that the average doctor can generate $10,000 per month in revenue from
the device. Theralase gets their money up front and has a back end cash flow
once the three-year period is complete.
Doctors
use the therapeutic cold laser technology to heal a wide variety of nerve,
muscle and joint issues such as lower back pain, tendonitis and knee problems.
In the US some 56 million patients suffer from chronic pain. The medical pain
market in the US exceeds $100 billion a year. Our population is aging rapidly
so there will be more demand in the future. The process is well known and
proven with lasers used by thousands of doctors and nurses worldwide with a
track record of millions of successful treatments.
The
cold laser works in three ways. It eliminates pain, reduces inflammation and
accelerates tissue healing. Now I must admit that like Roger White, when I
first heard about this, I wondered if I needed to put on my aluminum foil
beanie. It literally sounded too good to be true. But it’s been studied and
tested in blind and controlled clinical studies and it works. No tin foil hat
necessary.
If
Theralase’s cold laser device was the only dog in the hunt frankly I wouldn’t
be all that interested in working with them. They are doing a couple of million
a year in sales now. The updated machine due out in September of 2014 combined
with the new leasing scheme will triple their revenue. Ho, hum. But then Roger
mentioned their cure for cancer. . .
That
woke me up. I had to have him explain it to me carefully so I understood it. A
cure for cancer without surgery or expensive medicine would be a game changer.
Curing cancer at the speed of light would be a world class, perhaps universe
class game changer.
In
the late 1990s, Roger White read a short piece in an industry publication named Laser
Focus World talking about a chemistry professor at a Virginia university
who was working on molecules called Photo Dynamic Compounds (PDC) that were
attracted to cancer cells. When activated by light, these compounds kill the
cancer cells with no damage to healthy tissue surrounding the cancer.
White
got in touch with the professor and bought the rights to the technology.
Compared to the current standards of care for cancer patients using
surgery, chemo or radiation, a simple and safe cure would be a
revolutionary product.
Let’s
talk about cancer for a minute so you understand how these PDCs work. Normal
cells grow and eventually normal cells die. Cancer cells don’t die. They keep
growing until they kill the host. There is literally a switch in the DNA of
cancer cells that stays on when it should go off.
When
the PDC is injected into the cancerous area of the body, healthy cells reject
the PDC. Cancerous cells attract the PDC and it combines with the DNA of the
cancer cell. When the cold laser light is activated on both healthy and
cancerous cells, the healthy cells are not affected and the cancer cells die.
Naturally
this process requires a lot of testing. The first test the company conducted is
called a toxicity test. The test should measure both dark toxicity and light
toxicity. With the PDC injected in the cancer area, the PDC should have no
toxicity on any cells because it’s dark. When exposed to light, the PDC on the
cancer cells should react. Best case is zero dark toxicity and 100% light
toxicity. Theralase found this result in the lab studies of four of their
patented PDCs.
The
next test Theralase conducted was on a mouse. The company injected cancer cells
into a mouse and successfully created a tumor in the mouse. Then they injected
their patented PDC and activated it with a laser. This test showed a total
eradication of the tumor and the mouse lived an additional 20 months, which is
a normal mouse life span. Much to the surprise of the company, the PDC/Laser
light treatment also took five strokes off the mouse’s golf game.
The
treatment works on a variety of cancer cells including breast, colon, bladder
and brain cancer. But Theralase had to pick one specific cancer to work on to
get approval of the FDA and Health Canada for use in treatment.
Theralase
chose bladder cancer. In the US there are 70,000 new cases yearly and 14,000
deaths from the disease. Spending on bladder cancer amounts to $3.9 billion
yearly. There have been no new drugs to treat bladder cancer since 1998.
Bladder cancer is the most expensive cancer to treat and has an 80% recurrence
rate.
Theralase
is in the process of completing a mouse model on dose toxicity, working on the
Good Medical Procedures (GMP) manufacturing standards, and finishing the FDA
Investigational New Drug application. The next phase will be achieving
Breakthrough Status and partnering with a major pharmaceutical company.
Theralase
will design the laser. They are ISO-13485 certified and have some 20 years of experience
with laser devices. Manufacture of the PDC will go out to a GMP facility. At
this time there appears to be little regulatory risk. Since the PDC never
enters the blood stream it has virtually zero toxicity. The FDA likes new
cancer drugs and should love this procedure. Theralase’s applications have
been fast tracked through the approval process.
With
a price of $.34 today and 65 million shares outstanding, the market gives a
market cap of about $22 million for Theralase. The company has about $3 million
in the bank today from the placement completed in November. Those shares were
bought at $.15 with a full warrant attached for purchase of an additional share
at $.20 for two years. The four month hold on the shares expires on March 7
which explains why the shares have been weak, peaking at $.56 a little over a
month ago. With the warrants solidly in the money it would be perfectly natural
for investors in the PP to sell short to lock in a high price, knowing their
shares come free trading a few days from now so they can exercise their
warrants.
This
may be the most important company I have or ever will write about. This isn’t
just a treatment for cancer; it’s a cure for cancer through
what should be a medically benign method. The anticipated cash flow for the
next three years from the already tested and sold cold laser devices would more
than justify today’s share price but it’s simply not possible to anticipate the
financial value for a cure of any form of cancer. It should cure bladder
cancer; it may cure breast cancer and even lung cancer. The blue sky on this
stock goes from Canada all the way to the moon.
And
I really like talking to Roger White. Most of the people I talk to are figuring
out in their minds what not to tell me. I know when I am talking to them that I
am getting the part of the story they want me to know but I have to pry to find
out what I really need to know. Roger’s story of having been a tool and die
maker that morphed into president of a cancer cure company fascinated me. I
asked him to tell me the story. It’s not something that you would find in a
company brochure or on their website or written about by your typical financial
writer but it was riveting.
He
sat down and immediately wrote me an 1800-word missive that answered all my
questions. This piece isn’t very much longer than that and I’ve worked on it
for days. He’s not hiding anything. This is the real deal.
To
the extent that I believe this is a game changer, I’m proud to be able to write
this piece. This company could improve the lives of thousands or millions of
people. I hope they succeed. I hope they make a giant fortune, I hope everyone
who invests in them makes a giant fortune and I’m triple-thrilled to have them
as a sponsor.
I
don’t own shares; I’d like my contribution to their success to be doing a good
job of telling the story. I f**king love this company.
I
will not put in my typical mealy-mouth disclaimer required by the SEC on this
write-up. Shut up and buy the stock if you can afford some. If they somehow
manage to fail you have contributed more to the health of your fellow man and
perhaps even yourself than any other stock I can think of. When they succeed,
you have not only done good, you have done well.
http://www.321gold.com/editorials/moriarty/moriarty030314.html
Theralase
Technology Inc.
TLT-V $.34 (Feb 28, 2014)
TLTFF-OTCBB 65.8 million shares
Theralase website
Disclaimer: This
article was posted with the permission of a third-party contributor
and the opinions contained therein do not necessarily reflect
those of Smallcappower. Smallcappower does not endorse any investment
advice provided by these third-party contributors. Please consult
your investment advisor before making any investment decisions.
Ubika Corporation
and its divisions Smallcappower, Ubika Communication and Ubika Research are not
registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority in
Ontario or Canada, and do not provide nor claims to provide investment advice
or recommendations to any visitor of this site or readers of any content
on this site. – See more at: http://www.smallcappower.com/posts/small-cap-power-disclosure#.UoJQkZEq_vw
