X-Message-Number: 9024
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 17:41:09 +0100
From: John de Rivaz <>
Subject: 21st Century medicine and small shareholders

In article: <> Paul Wakfer writes:
> 21CM has made it very clear that they do
> not want the multitude of small contributors which comprise the Prometheus
> group of pledgers. And, frankly, I quite understand why!

Maybe the answer for 21st Century Medicine (21CM) would be go persuade 
someone with the necessary legal standing to set up an investment trust into 
which the small investors could invest and the trust would be a shareholder 
in 21CM. Surely there are some people in the cryonics movement with suitable 
social/legal standing to do this without shafting everyone with the usual 
fees? There seem to be plenty of people willing to offer all sorts of other 
services for free, so why not legal services? If this would really put an 
appreciable fraction of a million dollars into 21CM's research budget this 
surely would benefit the cause of developing reversible cryopreservation?

The only other alternative is to try and make money from spin-off as has 
Trans Time with its BioTime creation.

The great attraction of public companies is that people can invest in them 
anonymously - there is no direct writing of a check to the company by the 
shareholder. Therefore there is less heat in direct confrontations about 
whether people are trustworthy.

Biogenics Inc was formally known as Cryogenic solutions, and "CSI initially 
proposed a technique for cryopreservation of embryonal tissue for later 
transdifferentation, reimplantation, and birth. This concept evoked 
controversy from various groups who could not understand the technology 
and/or opposed it on philosophical grounds. Negative pressure created 
problems in marketing the service, and the distribution network never 
developed. The negative press had a significant and adverse effect on share 
price." The mind boggles as to what would have happened if this was a 
company with direct investment rather than via the market. Quite from 
<http://www.biogenix.com/history.htm>

Nevertheless, the company now looks set on a rosy carreer intorducing 
telomerase modification by a viral vector. 

-- 
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