Hot Stock Tip!

OK, so this is a bit off the usual post for this blog. One of my side projects while learning about the market is to focus on the "neurosciences" and the stock market. Now, a warning. I have no experience making investment recommendations etc, and I lost money recently (but not as much as the overall market). So, follow at your own risk.

A uncommon disease called myasthenia gravis affects less than 100,000 people per year in the US. It is caused by the inability of proper muscle contraction by antibodies to the muscle end-plate acetylcholine receptors. Learn more about it here. A common treatment is to give medications that inhibit the breakdown of neurotransmitters that act on the receptors, but it has numerous side effects, has to be taken multiople times per day, and so on.

However, there is a new drug that has great promise. This drug has the ability to inhibit the production of acetylcholinesterase which decreases the breakdown of the acetylcholine neurotransmitters using antisense oligonucleotide technology, which is really cool. Essentially these snippits of DNA can inhibit the gene transcription, or production, of acetylcholinesterase.

A U.K. company called Amarin, AMRN, which has been having some problems lately (delisting, turnover of management, and failed drug for huntington's disease, amongst others), has bought the rights to this drug from a Israeli company called Ester Pharmaceuticals. So what is the big deal? Well, hold on to your pants. The same acetylcholine neurotransmitter and receptor interaction is seen in the brain. And of two treatments for Alzheimer's currently being used (anticholinergic and antiglutaminergic), there is a wealth of information that supports increasing acetylcholine activity delays the progression of Alzheimer's disease. Yeah, that's right. This drug that is currently being used and is approved by the FDA for myasthenia gravis could potentially treat Alzheimer's disease, which affects millions. The numbers boggle the mind.

So far, I don't see much evidence that anyone has thought this through to the logical conclusion. Again, I cannot stress enough that this blog post is all about speculation. The drug may not work due to lots of factors, but once the idea has spread though to the market, I think it will take off. I will pick up a few shares, and see if it pans out.

:)