"Beware the Man that offers you the shirt off his back"
A little comedy in the morning is great. Nice to see a jurno go after the facts because the company is not letting the facts stand in the way of a good story. You would think that the regulators would start to ask some questions and want to look at the documentation of this new "FeedBack Trial Concept". I can't wait for the next issue. LOL
EMERGING global pharmaceutical giant PharmaNet told the market last week it had discovered a cure for pain.
Eight shots of Bundy and three longnecks of VB administered over a three-hour period? No, it's the exciting new compound "Tripeptofen". (You rub it on.) And today we can explain PharmaNet's revolution in bioscience.
As another 50 million PharmaNet shares changed hands yesterday, the scientific community held its breath. How could PharmaNet's 'scientific team' possibly invent a cure for such a widespread condition - pain, that is - and not herald this world first in scientific journals and the media?
The stock had risen sixfold last week on news of the Tripeptofen Project and its 'significant international medical and commercial importance'.
And now the riddle was solved, thanks to PharmaNet consultant Dr Glen Koski. Dr Koski told us that Tripeptofen was actually discovered in Thermalife cream - one of the company's products! 'It's a sub-component of the active ingredient that was found,' said Dr Koski.
'It's unique because it's out of a product that's already registered.' PharmaNet had been conducting a review for the purpose of 'reformulating and rebadging' Thermalife when the new technology was identified.
Dr Koski confirmed that PharmaNet had been conducting clinical trials on the compound for three months. The trials had been supervised by the scientific team of dermatologist Dr Chris Quirk, peptide scientist Dr John Snowden of the University of Western Australia and drug delivery specialist Dr Heather Benson - whose telephone number Pharmanet was 'not in a mind' to reveal yesterday.
Dr Koski said the unique part of the exercise would be the phase three clinical trials. Did that mean that the phase one and phase two trials had been completed over the past three months - in secret, without being announced to the ASX?
Well, not exactly. The trials, said Dr Koski, were undertaken by MPL (Molecular Pharmacology Ltd, a subsidiary of PharmaNet) and were 'feedback trials'.
PharmaNet had even discovered a cutting edge new classification of clinical trial - the Feedback Trial!
However, ASIC must have messed up with its company search data because it had not registered MPL three months ago when the Feedback Trials had commenced. Rather, MPL had been registered only last Wednesday.
No matter, International Scientific -- the expert which knocked out the Interim Technical Review for MPL - had been registered since 2002. Its principal, Mr Jeffrey Edwards, was an engineer, not a molecular scientist. And Dr Koski didn't know the occupation of the other principal, Ms Beverley Edwards.
No matter, Dr Koski stood to benefit from the Tripeptofen breakthrough as his company, Vagabond Holdings, owned 6million shares in PharmaNet.
Chairman's woes
THE surging stock price of PharmaNet should also come as a relief for its chairman and company secretary, Mr John Palermo, after the profound disappointment of his last corporate foray. Advantage Telecommunications Ltd - which changed its name to the grand Consolidated Global Investments Ltd last month (now suspended from trading) - is being sued, along with two directors: Andrew Boyd and Hastings Singh.
As chairman (and company secretary) of Advantel, Mr Palermo took this promising new-economy stock to great heights. Alas, it never quite achieved its ambitions of becoming a global telco giant, despite receiving free financial backing.
On August 5, a securities dealer, Upul Anthony, is to be sentenced by the NSW District Court for 74 cases of fraud worth $16.5 million.
Usually, it takes a few minutes for a judge to tap the gavel and hand down a sentence. However, in Upul's case the court has provided two days for deliberations on sentencing.
In a criminal hearing in July last year, Upul pleaded guilty to taking the money from Cogent Group. He gave $7 million to Advantel - yes, just gave it to them - and $3.5 million to Futures Telecom (of which Andrew Boyd was a director).
Upul, who could do with a bit of Tripeptofen, is expected to explain to the Supreme Court of NSW in a civil case in November how he illegally transferred the money from his employer, AMP subsidiary Cogent Group, and to whom he transferred the money.
Cogent is suing Advantage Telecommunications (Australia), Andrew Boyd and Hastings Singh, and former Andrew Boyd employee Neil Matthew Danson to recover the money.
Upul went bankrupt last November. Neil is in Parklea Prison for drugs offences. In the NSW Supreme Court yesterday the two-week civil hearing was set down to be heard on November 9.
CAI Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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