BTX DD courtesy of KELT BioTime Shorters Get It

BioTime Shorters Get It Wrong, Again

By the way, do you remember a few months ago when the short attackers were mounting a full assault of Star Scientific? Some of you, I know, used the opportunity to add to your portfolios. Some of those short attackers accused me of being part of some kind of conspiracy to promote Star Scientific, though I own none of the company’s stock.

The same thing is happening with regard to  BioTime (AMEX: BTX). It’s not the first time, but the attacks are particularly blatant now. I’m being named personally, and a website has been established on an Asian provider known to host malware.

I’m not going to link to any of this stuff, which is appearing on a relatively large investment-oriented website. I don’t want to give it traffic. I will say, however, that the website’s owners seem to have gone seriously off-track. I’ve heard that they are trying to sell the site, and it makes no sense that they would allow the sort of wildly inaccurate claims that are being made. An SEC probe right now could be very detrimental to any possible sale.

It’s odd, in fact, just how badly done these short attacks really are. It seems to me as if they’re not even trying to be accurate, but simply tossing out lies to fool the easily misled.

For example, I’ve heard that the attackers claim that my readers are 70% down on  Geron (NASDAQ: GERN). In fact, you may recall that I gave the sell recommendation in 2010 for an 86% gain. The attackers also say that BioTime is down 7%. In fact, it’s up around 400%. I don’t even really check the price regularly, because the company has only begun to perform.

Similarly, the writer or writers say that BioTime CEO Dr. Michael West is somehow responsible for the failures of Geron and Advanced Cell Technology, which would be remarkable, as he never ran either of those companies. He helped found both, but acted only as a scientist, and actually left them, with most of his important patents and discoveries, when managements were sidetracked.

BioTime is the first company that West has helmed. Let’s look at just a few of the people who have given him their confidence, so you can compare their credibility to the short attackers.

Dr. Arnold Caplan, the father of adult stem cell medicine, founded Osiris Therapeutics (OSIR) but jumped ship to join BioTime’s On coCyte. This faith was just shown to be justified by BioTime’s announcement that it has developed the first true cartilage stem cells. Caplan is professor of oncology at Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach was head of the FDA, as well as president of the American Cancer Society. His knowledge and connections make him one of the most important people in the pharmaceutical industry today, especially in the arena of oncology. He’s chosen to join BioTime, in large part because of the company’s breakthrough cancer diagnostic tools, which should be approved in Europe next year.

Dr. David Warshawsky’s decision to bring the world’s most-important and profitable bioinformatic database, XenneX, into the BioTime fold is a critical example of the scientific community’s confidence in BioTime. It also reflects the association of Israel’s extremely prestigious Weizmann Institute of Science, which developed the program.

The point is that these are the sorts of people who have placed their trust in Dr. West. I could go on, and will in later issues. Today, however, I’d like to show you a picture of my living cells growing in vitro at BioTime.

In coming weeks, I’ll show you other pictures that demonstrate BioTime’s unique technological ability to transform those cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. This process, blocking Sp100 gene expression, will be far superior to the Yamanaka virus vector method, which is slow, uncertain and destructive to cells. Since the short attackers are interested only in driving down the price of the stock so they can profit from their shorts, it won’t matter to them.

Further down the road, these cells will be precisely programmed to become beating heart muscle cells — with my DNA. West could put them back into my body and I would have no immune reaction. If other studies are an indication, they would provide system benefits to my health. West could as easily turn them into endothelial precursors, which would have the power to completely rejuvenate my cardiovascular system.