Off topic - Ebola

I think a lot of the cause of this correction is about the fear of ebola. I think a lot of the fear is justified. For a nightmare scenario, think what happens when the first ebola case gets into a western hemisphere country with less developed medical facilities (Mexico is a good example). What happens with our porous southern border?

I seems to me that the only way out of this isn’t containment, which seems pretty impossible, but a vaccine. If you know of any company working on an ebola vaccine with a good chance of success, they’d be a heck of a good choice for us to invest in. Any one with any ideas?

Saul

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Everyone should invest in Exelixis.

Jeb

Long EXEL

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why should everyone invest in exleysysisis?

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Jeb, From what I read, EXEL is working on treatments for cancer, not vaccines. Did I miss something somewhere?
Saul

Saul,

One company I’m aware of with an Ebola vaccine that has shown to be effective in animals is Inovio (INO). I’m certainly not recommending that anyone run out and buy shares, but it’s one that can be investigated. My guess would be that unless the crisis worsens quite a bit any use of this vaccine would be years off.

Here’s a short piece about it.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102051473?__source=yahoo%7cfinance%7c…

Steve

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One reason to invest in Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXEL) is so the price of my shares will go up. More broadly applicable reasons are rather hard to come by.

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http://www.valuewalk.com/2014/10/tekmira-pharmaceuticals-cor…

http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/Chembio-Diagnostics-Enters-th…

Quillnpenn -

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I think a lot of the fear is justified. For a nightmare scenario, think what happens when the first ebola case gets into a western hemisphere country with less developed medical facilities (Mexico is a good example). What happens with our porous southern border?

Saul, I think it will continue to spread. Since transmission can occur through the semen of a person who recovered from ebola for 3 months after recovery, it will spread everywhere. 30~50% recover which makes spread almost a sure thing. It will cause long term irreversible economic damage only if a significant portion of the population is killed.

Chris

This is not to scare people but what prevents terrorists from using the virus to launch suicide attacks? They don’t event have to do it inside U.S. They just need to do it in Mexico. I think U.S. is not capable of completely sealing the board. I am sure CIA and FBI are on top of this but what can they do? This is just too difficult to prevent.

ZMAPP is the only one I’ve heard of. Used x once on the british guy, who survived…thus 100% record in the UK! :slight_smile:

The Dallas man, Duncan, was treated with Brincidofovir.

Here is a link which has a infograph of other experimental drugs.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/…

But essentially it’s GSK that’s leading with ZMAPP I think. To inject some cynicism, their claims of it requiring a lot of time to make vaccine supplies is a brilliant business decision, as by then hopefully Ebola will have spread exponentially enough to keep spreading faster than the rate of vaccine production (10,000 vaccines by early next year apparently). Then, wow, chaching for GSK!

Semen being infectious for up to 90 days is pretty scary…I wasn’t aware of that. Prior to that fact I always thought the Ebola virus was pretty poor at spreading:
No sneezing, no coughing, you’re only infectious whilst displaying symptoms and NOT when you’re incubating the virus. But now you can spread the virus up to 90 days after recovering? wow!! More condoms to Africa please!

One reason to invest in Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ:EXEL) is so the price of my shares will go up. More broadly applicable reasons are rather hard to come by.

This is also the only reason I could think of. I own shares but would not buy them today.

Jeb

GSK is developing a vaccine (which is currently being fast-tracked through human trials). ZMAPP is a drug developed by another company.

Alex

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