Hope everyone is having a great weekend!
I will address two things today: 1) a very likely possibility of a bigger cash cow for Mesoblast in the CHF space and 2) a call to author an article on Mesoblast
1) Some patients affected by COVID-19 as well as those who have already recovered,
repeat already recovered, are developing heart disease. I draw your attention to one specific case in point.
Dr. Janet Shapiro who works as a
pulmonary critical care doctor at the
Mt. Sinai Medical Center's Morningside Heights location herself came down with COVID-19. She did recover, only to develop cardiomyopathy — "a disease of the heart muscle that makes it harder for your heart to pump blood to the rest of your body".
Here's more on Dr. Shapiro's case:
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/coronavirus/coronavirus-after-effects-ny-doctor-develops-heart-disease-after-recovery/2397699/Her's is not an isolated case.
It is estimated that 20% of COVID-19 patients are developing heart injury/failure. This is regardless of whether or not they had respiratory symptoms. Think about that for a minute.Heart disease in COVID-19 is being reported by researchers -- read this recent publication in the JACC (Journal of American College of Cardiology):
http://heartfailure.onlinejacc.org/content/early/2020/04/28/j.jchf.2020.03.004and
by various news outlets - one example below:
https://khn.org/news/mysterious-heart-damage-not-just-lung-troubles-befalling-covid-19-patients/So what does this mean for Mesoblast?Mesoblast's treatment for Congestive Heart Failure (Revascor) can be used for these patients, in my opinion, because the underlying issue with Cardiomyopathy and CHF is a weakening of the heart muscle and its inability to pump blood efficiently.
We are just over a month away from the Phase 3 trial readout for CHF. There is a possibility that the NIH would sponsor a quick RCT for Revascor in these patients (Dr. Eric Rose, Mesoblast's Board Member, can work through his involvement, being the Vice-Chair of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network) just like they did for Remestemcel-L.
That would mean a possible accelerated approval of Revascor plus an increase in the patient population for Revascor. So I see the cash cow for Revascor getting bigger as a result of COVID-19.
2) While we wait for further progress and results of the COVID-19/ARDS trial currently going on in the US, here is a proposition from me.
I have stated numerous times that Mesoblast is a relative unknown in the US (I still say that, despite that over 200% increase in share price in a single day and trading of about 30 million shares in the US). So here's my proposition: I am calling for an author (from HC members) to write an article about Mesoblast on the site SeekingAlpha (SA). There have been very few articles on SA about MESO in the past but none have done justice to Mesoblast's potential.
SA has a sizable readership base and often, authors can play a huge role in educating new investors. I have seen immediate share price boosts coming out of well written articles. I have also seen hit piece articles from shorts that tank the share price. So suffice it to say that articles on SA influence readers.
I am not asking for a pump article. Just facts. (Mesoblast does not need pumping). The article should also include a section on NPV and future revenue/share price projections.
Here are guidelines for submitting an article:
https://seekingalpha.com/page/article-submission-guidelinesAn added incentive is if the article is published as an "Exclusive Article", the author is guaranteed $1000 (USD) if selected for Top Idea publication.
So here's calling the authors amongst us. Can I see a show of hands or can we get a vote on who it will be?
(It's probably best amongst us to choose one designated HC poster to write an article, as we don't want 2 or 3 of us starting the effort and stepping on each other's toes).
PS: No, I am not the best qualified to author an article. So count me out.
(20min delay)
