Cloak and Dagger Developments at Cel-Sci Against Swine Flu

“The Obama administration is very worried that this could turn into a double dip (double bottom) recession,” said one person familiar with this situation. “They are doing everything they can to ensure that the H1N1 pandemic is not the catalyst for just such an event.”

As I reported in my last article about CEL-SCI Corporation (CVM),. the company’s latest filing with the SEC confirms that scientists there have created one (and perhaps even several) potential peptide vaccines and treatments against the H1N1 swine flu using their L.E.A.P.S.™ technology - a patented, T-cell modulation, peptide epitope delivery technology.

The platform has enabled CEL-SCI to begin pre-clinical evaluation and testing of the new applications of its H1N1 vaccine and treatments, which will allow the targeting of "mutated" versions of H1N1 swine and other influenza viruses.

What got me on the latest trail of these developments was the company's unusual absence at last week’s Rodman and Renshaw Health Conference in New York City. There were hundreds of other biotech companies with far less newsworthy developments in attendance, but CEL-SCI representatives were nowhere to be found. One organizer told me that the company had been invited to participate on several occasions, but they had politely declined.

As it turned out, they had more pressing matters to attend to.

While I was able to track down CEO Geert Kersten directly, he would not confirm (or deny) many of the questions I had for him regarding rumors of multiple meetings that had taken place with high ranking government officials near Washington at the company’s facilities last week (during the same time that the conference was taking place in New York City).

Sources had told me that the company had been in discussions over several days with multiple government groups interested in expediting CEL-SCI’s H1N1 efforts- “particularly since no other company has offered a possible treatment option.”

And what is that treatment option?

“It’s all about prompting an immune response to the virus,” said the insider on condition of anonymity. “What makes you a great runner, versus the guy who comes in second? Sometimes a simple fraction of a second. That’s the only difference. What the company is trying to do is give that very sick person who may be on a respirator that extra fraction of a second. That’s what their efforts are about when it comes to both very sick patients and the possible virus mutations…Tipping the scales towards survival. ”

So that’s what these government groups have taken an interest in?

"CEL-SCI has gotten some attention for what they have been very quietly working on for some time. These are some very important people. As a matter of fact, most of the time when there are meetings with government groups, those groups are always accountable to someone else, whether it be the White House or members of Congress or even the voters. From what I’ve seen, some of these people aren’t accountable to anyone."

What does that mean? They are working undercover or as part of some black budget?

"All I can say is that there are some very worried people at the highest levels because all the current vaccine studies are late and most of the supplies may not even be available until after the current flu season. All you have to do is look at the numbers and they don’t add up. There will not be enough vaccine to go around. That has many people terrified. You know we still haven’t vaccinated the first responders - the emergency workers and doctors. You know that, right?"

I was just reading something along those lines. Some of my friends who are law enforcement have yet to be vaccinated although I know that at least one federal department has been sending various alerts in regards to campus populations getting infected more quickly around the country than ever before.

"Everything has been designed to make people feel comfortable. So they’ve shipped things like Tamiflu to the states, so we can say ‘Oh there’s Tamiflu available.’ They said in June at the White House summit: ‘We’ll have one hundred million school children vaccinated by October.’ But they knew full well that they wouldn’t have enough vaccine because early in April we had word that the vaccine was not growing well in eggs."

So you’re saying that we have a government that is just waking up to the fact that this situation may get a lot worse than originally thought?

"Tamiflu is starting to show resistance. Already there are published reports from the Middle East that the virus has mutated there. It is now fact that there are people in Egypt infected with both Avian Flu and Swine Flu. What happens when Muslim populations from those countries start their famous yearly pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam's holiest city? Imagine all of those people praying in extremely close proximity to each other in one place. Do I have to say more? There are plenty of very smart people who have already started to connect the dots here."

Under gag orders, penalty of law or otherwise personal choice, CEL-SCI’s CEO, Geert Kersten was not able to comment on the nature or scope of any of these meetings when contacted by BioMedReports via his cell phone. One thing he was able to confirm was that the company’s small circle of suppliers was working overtime to turn special orders around as quickly as possible. He also confirmed that the company was hiring more staff in order to help with certain H1N1 efforts.

When asked who had come up with the idea to work on not only the vaccines using their L.E.A.P.S.™ technology, but also some treatment options, Kersten was clear.

"Everything here is done by collaboration. That’s the idea of the team. It may have been someone’s comment leading to the input of others and that took us down the road of the mutated virus and then we said ‘well, if we can work on the mutated virus, who is actually addressing the issue of all those people lying in an ICU today, fighting for their lives for a week or ten days?’ And then we figured out that using the same approach we ought to be able to help them improve their chances of survival."

How long ago did you start that process?

“Somewhere along the way, it was like a Eureka moment,” says Kersten. “We’ve got to help these people. Everybody’s focus is on vaccines and they’re having all kinds of problems with the vaccines, but there has to be someone working to help these patients who have a high likelihood of death. That’s how we got to that.

“With L.E.A.P.S.™ we can control in advance and determine, almost by design, how the immune system will process the epitope and therefore we know what kind of immune response we will get- whether cellular or humoral. By doing that, you can- we feel- have significant impact on these people’s chances of survival."

Pressed in whether he felt the company had been approached by the government because of these developments, Kersten would only say: “We’re going to need some resources that probably only the government has and I’m not just talking about money. That’s going to need to happen for things to accelerate quickly.”

While he was not comfortable talking much more about the alleged developments which are taking place behind the scenes, Kersten was able to more easily address my questions about the company’s recent elimination of $8.3 million worth of debt via its Series K convertible notes.

“I love to see a simple balance sheet,” said Kersten. “ We have a very simple balance sheet now. There were also some preferential terms for the holder of these shares and I wasn’t sure that they were incentivized like the rest of the share holders, so now everybody is incentivized the same way, and I think that’s a good thing for all the share holders. “

So basically we’re left to look at this as a journey into the unknown. A potentially severe pandemic type of situation like this has not existed since 1917, and from an investor’s standpoint, we are left with only one clear map. If we know that historically “flu stocks” trade four to five times higher on Wall Street during the North American winter months, what might happen this year? Especially given all of these interesting revelations?

I'm reminded what that insider told me about this entire game of cloak and dagger in the space of H1N1:

When investors find out how quickly this is all happening, their heads are going to shake with disbelief.

Stay tuned.

Biotech investors interested in accessing the news portal's complete database of clinical trials and upcoming FDA decisions can access that information here:

Disclosure: Long CVM

Comments

[jay brebner:]

"It is now fact that there are people in Egypt coinfected with both swine and avian influenza."

No this is not fact.

blogs.sciencemag.org/s...

And our pediatrician has been vaccinated so I could extrapolate from anecdote that all doctors have been vaccinated as you have above. Your inside source is irresponsible. but "you know that, right?"

Sep 17 08:36 AM

[F N:]

No one knows anything for sure. Everyone is speculating, that is what is so scary about this whole thing. Not only that, they are not telling the public the whole truth I am sure. They would not want to create a panic attack across the nation.

Sep 17 10:03 AM

[jay brebner:]

I dare you to find a case of someone in the government covering up anything about this pandemic. The CDC has been as open about this since the beginning as could be possible. The administration is rightfully worried but no one in America should be in the dark regarding this virus. And anyone who is ignorant enough to not get vaccinated should be given some kind of civil penalty. This is not the 1976 vaccine.

Sep 17 11:19 AM

[F N:]

Well, we have quite a few people in the medical field in the family.
I can tell you that 50 percent are not getting vaccinated, the others are obligated by their work.
For the record, I am not saying that they would "intentionaly" cover up. This thing is so new that certain information would not be shared with the public until 100 percent sure as to not cause panic. The virus has probably mutated. They are not going to tell us that until thy are 100 percent sure; only time will tell.
First, they told us that it only killed people that had previous health issues; that was until that 5 year old boy died unexpectedly from it and he was perfectly healthy. My heart goes out to his family. Story is at this link --> abcnews.go.com/video/p...

Sep 17 12:31 PM

[F N:]

This whole thing is very scary; especially to those of us who are parents.

Sep 17 12:39 PM

[jay brebner:]

I'm a parent as well and I live in NC where the virus originated more than a decade ago on a factory hog farm. As parents we should demand more info regarding the amount of antibiotics sold by industry and used by agribusiness as part of our public health system.

Sep 17 03:52 PM

[chazzzzz:]

Amazing how a CEO would speak to a writer over a cellphone giving certain privy information not discussed in any SEC filing . Amazing after the pop up to $1.40 the company immediately has an offering set up when just a few weeks ago that had an offering around .50 cents.

I dont want to knock Biomedreports in fact I like the research but my gut instinct here is that "Multikine" is the real driver. With the news void on Multikine I am quite skeptical about any H1N1 rumor. With every other pharma company with much deeper pockets way ahead in the development cycle I find it hard to believe that CVM could be a defacto government supplier unless there was a collaboration with one of those big pharmas.

CVM's tech may be great but all the easy money may have been made while waiting for the cancer drug

Sep 17 05:05 PM

[hoopdreamer...:]

Multikine is garbage, fake, fraud. Buyer beware.

Sep 17 10:55 PM

[jay brebner:]

Multikine has been around since mid 90's so buyer should beware. If killing tumors were as easy as injecting a potion of well characterized chemokines into a tumor then IMO the big boys would have cured it a long time ago. so I agree emptor caveat.

Sep 19 11:41 AM

[Robert0713:]

I held it until AH, and did some more reading. Looks like HEB in sheep's clothing. Made $.20/share or whatever. Not worth the grief.


On Sep 19 11:41 AM jay brebner wrote:

> Multikine has been around since mid 90's so buyer should beware.
> If killing tumors were as easy as injecting a potion of well characterized
> chemokines into a tumor then IMO the big boys would have cured it
> a long time ago. so I agree emptor caveat.

Sep 19 09:37 PM

[MD Onco:]

As a M.D following CVM for a long and long time....there are a few things......first....the stock has closed above resistance and 5 years highs.....the volume is exploding and it started a few months ago with 32 miljon out of the blue...
the multikinine.....still phase 3 has to start but now there is money...which was not at 0,14 cent this year....CEO Kerstens is a publicity freak...the company has NO revenues, only debts and losses in foreseable future.......about 162miljon shares so yes today 300miljon market cap.....investors in indexes ETF, scam , news ,H1n1...and so on....but by pure coincidence it could be so that LEAP is important in the darkness of swine flue, pandemic, hysteria, deaths and big buissiness.....see DNDN.
So something is going on......target technically 5$ and hype??? 50$ but if it is a scam falling apart to again 0,25$ it would not surprise me either.....I know CVM for years .....
The future will see......and the charts say ...it is much better then a few months ago......

Sep 21 06:06 PM

[hoopdreamer...:]

MD Onco, you point out you're an MD but then you just talk about the stock chart and hype. Don't be an MD masquerading as a stock expert. Tell us something about a product in your area of expertise, not a fake company that pushes PR in whatever the hot area de jour is every few years.

Sep 23 09:48 AM

[newbie to s...:]

I am confused, if CVM is such a big deal with the H1N1 virus then why are their stocks falling? I've been watching and it's now dropping below the $1.70 mark and yesterday it was over $2. Can someone please explain this to me?

Sep 23 03:06 PM