It's no eternal life, but it beats having a sore finger November 19, 2011 .PERTH, as anybody with a scintilla of scientific awareness will know, is the biotechnology capital of the world.
It is here, amid the slew of junior mineral explorers, that dozens of high-technology companies are domiciled.
Lest readers be deluded by the notion that most ASX companies be headquartered in Sydney or Melbourne, it is not so. Here are their homes, state by state: Adelaide, 86; Brisbane, 198; Melbourne (including Tasmania), 366; Sydney, 710; and Perth, 866.
Advertisement: Story continues below A great deal of these West Australian entities - if they are not in the swing of appointing a voluntary administrator to backdoor-list another exciting opportunity into a gutted shell - are poised for a big breakthrough.
Some stand at the cusp of a great mineral discovery, others a giant leap of technology. And we are proud today to share one story that we have personally followed for many years, a company which has discovered a cure for humanity's greatest affliction … pain.
We speak of Pharmanet Ltd, which announced six years ago, to jubilant accolades, that it was on the verge of a cure for none other than pain itself. At the time, there was some confusion as to whether this might have included all pain, both mental trauma and broken-leg style.
That has since been clarified. Six years later, in the wake of umpteen quick-fire stock rallies, executive options exercises, capital raisings and even an "international forum'' - attended exclusively by the Pharmanet scientific team - we have an actual product about to hit an actual market, which is not the sharemarket.
We applaud the vision of executive chairman, the mining entrepreneur John Palermo, for persevering with his cure for pain. The world applauds him! After $25 million of accumulated losses - much of it through consultants' fees and directors' benefits and virtually nothing in R&D - the topical cream Thermalife is soon to hit pharmacy shelves.
The cure has been narrowed down from universal pain to "temporary relief of muscular and arthritic pain". Nonetheless, your humble essayist is in a unique position to conduct phase III clinical trials of his own as he suffers from arthritis of the pointer finger. This is true, and yes, we will report the findings.
(20min delay)