die glaubten aber bereits am 27.07.03 an Calypte...gutes timing würde ich sagen.
Calypte Biomedical Corporation (OTCBB: CYPT) $0.125
One of the hottest areas in the biotechnology sector today is AIDS. Often considered the “holy grail”of biotechnology, companies are rushing to develop a cure for this devastating disease. However, what often get lost, as investors race to find the company that will develop a therapeutic for the disease, is the diagnostic side. It has been proven that individuals who are diagnosed and treated while they have HIV and before they develop symptoms of full-blown aids have a far better chance of survival. This is where tiny Calypte Biomedical comes in. The company is focused on developing diagnostic products for the detection of HIV and other infectious diseases.
Although the company has a nominal market capitalization, it has already received FDA approval to manufacture and sell its urine-based HIV-1 antibody screening test for use in professional laboratory settings. In mid-2001, the FDA approved Calypte’s pre-market application for the Cambridge Biotech HIV-1 Urine Western blot. The company is currently marketing its urine-based antibody tests through its own sales force in the U.S. The company, which has the only two FDA approved HIV-1 antibody tests for use with urine samples (its other test is called the Sentinel™ Testing Service), recently expanded its distribution in China as well. CYPT recently received an order from its Chinese distributor for 150,000 test kits. The company also has distribution in Taiwan and the Middle East.
How reliable is the test? Basketball great Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who is HIV-positive, recently joined the company’s Board of Directors. He cited the fear of many to undergo a blood test in his decision to join the Board, and the benefits of a non-invasive test using urine, as it is less expensive, carries significantly less risk of the disease being transmitted through contaminated blood, and is highly accurate. In fact, the test has been 99.7% correct in detecting the virus in HIV-positive patients, and 100% among those at low risk for HIV. Also, scientific publications such as Nature Medicine have stated that blood testing in conjunction with urine testing is more reliable than blood testing alone.
Despite the promise of its test kits, the company has struggled for several years to generate meaningful revenues. It had just $375,000 in revenues for the first quarter ended March, 2003, down from nearly $1.2 million in the same period in 2002. These are hardly the kind of results likely to excite investors in an emerging company. However, this represents only part of the story. Apparently, labs were reluctant to deal with the company, as it did not have the funding to produce the kits. In fact, in mid-April, the company announced that it was winding down operations. Nearly one month later, Tony Cataldo, the company’s new CEO, announced that an investor group led by him would provide approximately $1.4 million within 90 days and an additional $5 million over 12 months to fund Calypte’s operations.
We believe that the infusion of this capital, combined with the presence of Magic Johnson as a member of the Board, should give the company access to the necessary resources to commercialize its promising technology in a broader way. While there are still many challenges for the company to overcome with respect to its capital structure (there are several convertible financings outstanding), at its current valuation we feel that the prospects created by a multi-billion market opportunity exceed the risks associated with investing in a small company that still needs to prove that it can monetize its promising technology.
Gruß, sireuitz. |