DRTS - Cancer Goes Bye Bye / Portfolio Goes High High
Hello degenerates -
Here is my DD on DRTS, an oncology treatment that is going to pop.
What's the problem with treating cancer? They're all different and it takes fucking forever to know if your molecule is actually going to kill it in vivo. Not only that, if your fancy new molecule does actually do something, most of the time the 'improvement' is measured in months. Someone lives twelve months instead of six? Fucking A that is a great cancer drug! Why do we measure outcomes in such small increments? Because cancer is multifaceted problem, (especially solid tumors), so just because lots of your testicular cancer overexpresses some KRAS-RAS protein, or whatever the fuck, about three molecules over there is another cancer cell in your balls that overexpresses c-KIT. So when you nuke all of the tumor cells that are KRAS-RAS happy, the c-KIT cells don't give a shit and actually kind of appreciate you nuking their neighbor so they can expand. A few months later you make the twelfth month, do your last snort of cocaine and die.
How is DTRS different?
It's not targeting some pussy ass combo of proteins or upregulated signatures or telling your immune system to stay on DEFCON-1 for three months. KRAS-RAS upregulated? Who cares. It's gonna work. The tumor upregulate NANOG, or SOX-7, or SOX-69420? DTRS don't give a shit about any of that. It's gonna go to motherfucking work on whatever is around. Blam blam blam!
How? It's a goddamn nuclear assault on the tumor. They have these tiny little payloads of radium-224 that get placed into the fucking tumor. This element spits out radioactive particles, alpha particles, that don't go very far, but do go strong and they wreck the fucking shit outta whatever cells are next door. KRAS-RAS upregulated cell? It isn't immune to goddamn alpha particles. Tumor with PD-L1 cells? Still gets blown apart by alpha particles. Everything is susceptible to having a pellet of radium-224 put into the middle of it. Even your wife's boyfriend.
It might get better, cause once you blow the tumor into 39293929323 particulates, the immune system can wake up and start to recognize parts of the tumor. In other words, you've got a tumor in both arms. You get a blast of radium-224 in your left arm, and four months later, both arms are cancer free. The abscopal effect. (Evidence is limited, but broad, and has a line of sight from a mechanism of action stand point).
So the idea is: How much is a stock worth if it can actually murder lots of different kinds of cancer without the troublesome side effects of chemo or more globally targeted radiation therapy? I'd say, conservatively, many, many monies.
What have they done so far:
Glioblastoma: Treated 3 patients, 2 of whom got complete motherfucking remission. The other saw their tumor shrink by 30% when reported, and a disease control. The only current 'therapy' for Glioblastoma is 'take your last snort of coke and get your affairs in order'. Wah. It's only two patients. Shut the fuck up. It's fucking glioblastoma; literally nothing works and they batted 1.00 on two thirds of their swings. The initial three patients were a safety study (might as well shoot their fucking brain up with radioactive pellets, cause their outlook is that grim). Study expanded to ten patients.
Pancreatic Cancer: 100% Motherfucking Local Disease Control. Wah. It's a small study. Shut the fuck up. It's goddamn pancreatic cancer - even other cancers are afraid of this flavor. Also, some patients in this study showed evidence of the abscopal effect.
Approved in Japan for Neck and Head Cancers: (Link was in Japanese so find it yourself)
Skin Cancer: Ongoing test for people who had resistant skin cancer that is not an option for removal and for whom there aren't other good options.
Their pipeline also has trials being designed for prostate cancer. You can find it yourself, I've given enough links.
Radium-224 is the motherfucking honey badgers of cancer. It doesn't give a fucking shit what kind of cancer cells it gets injected into. Those cells are gonna take an alpha particle up the fucking ass, blow apart, and give the immune system a bunch of fingerprints of the cancer bad guys. Some of their trials include alongside checkpoint inhibitors; i.e., blow it apart and take the brakes off the immune system for a while so it is extra vigilant. Hell yeah.
The other thing that works in their favor is that it is not a medicine. It's a device, which faces a much less strenuous regulatory battle. They got some FDA breakthrough device approval stuff. I dunno what that means, but it's better than not having a designation. Read it if you want.
What's are the downsides?
Logistics. You can't just grow radium-224 anywhere; you got to produce somewhere people are OK with radiation shit and do all kinds of "big government" licensing. Also, it has a very short half life [2-3 days] (which is why it is good for putting into your body as opposed to something that is going to spit out alpha particles for twenty years). But the upshot is, they gotta spin up some radium pellets right before you need to irradiate your testicular cancer, then get it up in your balls fast. DRTS has some sites already approved and doing some thorium shit to make radium, one in Israel, one in MA and more to come. They have some carrier willing to work with them on shipping the shit around. Look it up if you care.
Logistics Pt 2: You need doctors willing to work with radioactive material. On the other hand, if you have fucking glioblastoma and your doctor tells you they don't like working with radium, you'll be highly incentivized to find another opinion.
Biological: Duration. Most of the success that has been seen has been evaluated for relatively short timelines. Does the treatment make you cancer free for three years? Ten? I dunno. You can buy in now or wait five years to know when the stock is at $200.
Biological: Diffuse tumors are more difficult to treat than big masses of cancer. Could reduce the footprint. Still a big blast radius.
Money: Currently, they spend more money than they make. Who cares? The market doesn't give a fuck about that stuff anymore. People are still holding SPCX and Uber.
Edit: Thin Moat: I was reminaded that someone else could do the same thing because radium isn't exactly proprietary. They've got a bunch of patents, but who knows if they will hold up.
Bottom line, something that works on tons of solid tumors is going to be worth, conservatively, many, many monies. Enough shit like pansy-ass doctors or finding somewhere on the west coast to make pellets is going to be pretty easy when you curing motherfucking cancer money.
Position: 3500 shares at 11. Probably will buy some 2029 calls when some more money gets freed up or if it dips some.
