"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things:"...

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things:"

Lewis Carroll

My Friends,

Tiresias has had a very pleasant sabbatical, meditating on matters celestial and matters terrestrial. Since he last communicated, his celestial messenger, Zeus, Zeus-the-father, Zeus-pater, ie Jupiter, has risen into the evening skies and now shines brightly in the eastern evening sky. Any rumours of Tiresias’s permanent leaving his HC friends bereft of his thoughts have been greatly exaggerated. Tiresias always intended coming back when he though propitious. Now that time has come. There has been so much news and so much to discuss that Tiresias had to start. Truly there is so much to discuss, that today's epistle will be but a brief outline, raising topics that need to be discussed and dissected in detail which need many more weeks. This he undertakes to do for his friends.

So, what has happened since last Tiresias put pen to paper? Well of course the first is the FDA application which is now well and truly underway. Tiresias understands that the application has been well received and he waits patiently, anticipating or hoping for an expeditious and timely processing by that gigantic bureaucracy, the FDA. FDA approval will a game changer, for although Carl Zeiss has approval for Optiscan’s CONVIVO, and Pentax received FDA approval for Optiscan’s miraculous Endoscopic Endomicroscope, this will be the first FDA approval that Optiscan itself will have received. This is big. This is very big.

The next item Tiresias would raise is the recent video, which is on this platform, which he trusts, you, his friends, have all watched, several times. Tiresias would raise three points from this, three points which he considers highly pertinent. The first was the statement of Professor Mark Preul, neurosurgeon, and head of neurosurgical research at the Barrow Institute in Phoenix Arizona, a world recognised neurosurgical. Preul calls Optiscan’s real-time in-vivo confocal digital endomicroscopy "the holy Grail" for neurosurgery of malignant brain tumour. Again, Tiresias has spoken on this previously but will discuss the details of what this meant in Tiresias’s subsequent epistles. As a brief aside, on this subject of glioblastoma multiforme (malignant brain tumours), Tiresias would remind you once more that there has not been any improvement in prognosis, in this, the most feared of all cancers, in the last 60 years. This is in spite of all the advances in neuro-imaging, surgical technique and oncology. Another aside, Tiresias also notes the recent disquiet of patient groups and patient relatives and media demands that Dr Charlie Teo, Sydney neurosurgeon, who has been suspended by Australian medical licensing authority for unorthodox neurosurgical practice in treating patients with glioblastoma multiforme, be returned early to treat these desperate people facing imminent death. Tiresias understands their desperations. Tiresias does not wish to enter into the Charlie Teo controversy but he would like to point out that if these poor patients and their relatives, their supporters, and the media, really want to make a difference they should be agitating and pounding on the doors of politicians, health bureaucrats, and cancer groups to do everything, including provide public funding for Optiscan technology to be brought forth immediately into neurosurgery, as the current practice of neurosurgery without digital confocal Endomicroscopy, Charlie Teo’s radical surgery notwithstanding, is obsolete and makes no difference to the survival of people with malignant brain tumour.

The second subject in the video was the statement by Professor Bruce Mann, breast surgeon at Melbourne University and Royal Melbourne Hospital, who is conducting the Optiscan’s breast-cancer study. Another sad aside, Tiresias wishes to note and acknowledge the death of his favourite Australian girl next door, and imaginary girlfriend, Olivia Newton-John, from breast cancer. Her death is due to one thing, and one thing only. It is due to the fact that in treatment of her breast cancer, malignant cells were left behind, proliferated, and eventually led to her death. Optiscan real-time confocal in-vivo digital endomicroscopic pathology will greatly reduce this and greatly improve the prognosis for breast cancer and breast cancer surgery. This is underway but again Tiresias wishes that breast-cancer support groups would support and demand fast action and facilitation ofOptican’s endeavours. It is underway, and Tiresias awaits such a tipping point. Another subject, in this vein, but slightly unrelated, Tiresias also notes the recent “heroic” commando 13 hour surgical procedure on another favourite singer, John Farnham, whom Tiresias wishes best of luck, but Tiresias would have wished that Optiscan’s endomicroscope had been used as it would have made a significant difference to the ultimate prognosis, quite apart from possibly obviating the need for such surgery had it been available in the clinic to diagnose the cancer early, in the first place.

The third subject in the video, which Tiresias could be misreading, but which he nevertheless takes as a very very big hint. This was Professor Camile Farah, CEO of Optiscan said, to wit, that Optiscan is “looking for collaboration”. Tiresias understands this to be corporate speak. Tiresias understands when Professor Farah is looking for collaboration, that collaboration has already underway. You will recall that he has a long history and contacts in exactly this area, and big players are in the play already, and deals are on or near. The exciting fields that Tiresias looks to for new players are in oral surgery and head and neck surgery, breast cancer surgery, and the big bull elephant in the room, the really big game changer, gastroenterology. Tiresias concedes brain tumour surgery to Zeiss, but their slowness has been frustrating, and Tiresias notes that Professor Preul was speaking on behalf of Optiscan and not Carl Zeiss.

Now what about the price action? Tiresias’s friends would note that all markets are in turmoil and every morning we wake up and to a tanking Dow and S&P, the Pound Sterling is in the cellar, Bond markets are tanking, the interest-rates are rising, and inflation is hitting new highs. The price of Optiscan however doesn’t budge and in fact seems to be wanting to go up. That it hasn’t risen may be in part due to the general market turmoil, but in part, in Tiresias’s opinion that there actually isn’t enough stock available now at these prices. Tiresias thinks, and he can always be wrong, although he doubts it, that it would be very hard for anyone new, who wanted a meaningful stake to actually buy at these prices. The available stock has tightened and meaningful numbers available for sale not at these prices. The lackey band is stretching, and the sharp snap is imminent. Tiresias would suggest if you have any thoughts to increase your holding or get or start, a stake, buy, start buying, and start buying now.

As is often the case, Tiresias has gone on and tested his friends’ endurance, so till next time. has Tiresias keeps the faith!