You're one of the few people I ever saw who can make a living trading long options, and using fundamental analysis! Congrats!! I'm watching you.
95% luck so don't watch too close. I may not be as good as I portrayed. We all like to puff-up a little and pretend to be successful.
What did you think of SMMT’s data? Do you trust it? https://www.biospace.com/drug-devel...-analysts-advise-caution-with-china-only-data
I have to dive into it before I can give you my full opinion. The fact that SMMT is a US based company and generally follows US practice is a big plus. They conducted their trial in China probably because of cost saving. The drug is a bispecific monoclonal antibody, a hot area for cancer treatment research but they are not the first out of the gate. In general, I have concerns about the rigor and care in which Chinese researchers perform their research but that does not negate good outcome. That is why I want to see duplicates of their research. I could go on but the short answer is wait and see their US and global trial. Be patient, there is time.
Although it's true, as you say, that an mRNA vaccine targeting one strain of a virus may not work as well once the initially targeted virus mutates, mRNA vaccines, so far, still work marvelously with new Covid mutations, once the mutation has been identified and characterized and the mRNA in the vaccine has been altered accordingly. The great advantage of the mRNA vaccines over the old, dead, or inactivated, virus vaccines lies in the speed at which new mRNA vaccines targeting mutated virus can be produced compared to the relatively long time it takes to produce new traditional vaccines. Still another advantage these new mRNA vaccines have is that their safety, after billions of doses having been administered, is, so far, unparalleled in comparison to the overall safety record of traditional vaccines, which is, by the way, also quite impressive. The jury seems still to be out regarding the staying power of the protection offered by mRNA vaccines. A disadvantage of the mRNA vaccines comes from its instability at room temperature in solution. (Vaccines in general are stored under refrigeration, but mRNA is especially labile. Its this stringent requirement for refrigeration at low temperatures that has kept the mRNA vaccines from being as useful in places like India and most of sub-Saharan Africa, for example.)
I have observed that advancement in basic, scientific research is not a linear function of either man hours or money employed. Progress made at a trillion per year expenditure may be insignificantly faster than at an expenditure one-thousand-fold less (one billion). That's because there will be key advancements on which all other progress is critically dependent. The best one can hope for is that significantly more effort will at least increase chances of a major breakthrough. Usually, once a critical level of funding and man power has been applied, a greater rate of progress is more likely to be dependent on the availability of qualified personnel than it is on money. What this observation is telling me is that once a critical level of effort has employed the majority of available, qualified personnel, any additional effort will likely be due to ill-considered desperation rather than a well thought out plan of attack. If more effort is needed, then the right thing to do is to train more personnel. In our world, that can only happen if incentives are increased. Most often this means greater remuneration. Practically speaking, this might require a realignment of existing incentives. Or said another way, in a capitalist economy, it might require purging an economy of monopolies and cartels that have been government enabled via regulatory capture and consume an unconscionable portion of the public purse. Such a purging could increase competition and decrease the public's costs; thus freeing-up public money to be spent more productively.
In all due respect, I don't think we will convince the other side no matter the science, so let's not even try. It is a free country and with the COVID vaccines, we can now respect & allow everyone to choose freely. There are still 2000 death a week but now it won't affect me or my family. As for lung cancer vaccines, we are trying to get on the mRNA-4359 clinical trial but they are very selective and the applicants are many so we may not qualify. ET is a trading forum, let's talk trades. Both BNTX and MRNA are almost tradable and on my options radar right now. Still early but the stalking is on and the hunt is not. You take care.
The beauty of scientific breakthroughs is they are unpredictable, like Taleb's black swans. That is why we need to keep an open mind. Case in point, mRNA was not meant for vaccine, the initial focus was cancer. Another case, ivermectin, the parasite killer, wasn't meant to treat cancer (or COVID) but scientists found the mechanism of action was to kill single cell larvae of parasites and someone wondered if it could kill cancer cells (or COVID virus)? May be it can, may be it cannot...