פתחים סמויים מהעין

שואב אבק הוא רובוט,

מלחך רצפות הוא רובוט,

חייל הוא רובוט.

חברה חדשה בנאסד"ק, IRBT , מייצרת (קחו אוויר) רובוטים!

(ביל גייטס השני, 1954: הרובוטים הם העתיד!)

הכותב ממליץ להתאזר בסבלנות ולא לרכוש את הצעצוע, עד ליציאת גרסאות מתקדמות יותר עם אינטרנט אלחוטי מהיר ויציאה למדפסת. תודה.

מתוך "הארץ":

מדעי החיים

הגידול הסרטני נהפך למשוואה מתמטית, ואז יודעים אם החולה הווירטואלי יחיה

מאת עודד חרמוני

"על פי התוכנית שלנו, בתוך עשר שנים הרווח הנקי שלנו ממכירות יגיע לכ-260 מיליון דולר", אומרת פרופסור צביה עגור, מייסדת חברת אופטימטה (optimata). עשר שנים זה הרבה זמן, אך הצהרה כל כך יומרנית מצד חברת סטארט-אפ קטנה, היא עדיין לא עניין של מה בכך. ומה אם עגור צודקת? חברת הסטארט-אפ אופטימטה שהקימה עגור ב-99' היא אחת מחברות מדעי החיים השקטות שרק באחרונה מתחילה להגיע לידיעת הציבור. על התפר שבין ביוטכנולוגיה, מחשוב ופארמה, מציעה אופטימטה גישה חדשה לפיתוח תרופות, שאמורה להוזיל משמעותית את עלויות הניסויים הקליניים של חברות תרופות בדרך לאישור התרופה, ולחסוך ניסויים יקרים שהמערכת מוצאת מראש כי לא יניבו תוצאות טובות. כאשר עלות פיתוח תרופה עד ליציאתה לשוק, כולל ניסויים, נאמדת בכ-800 מיליון דולר, כל חסכון - אפילו בשיעור זעיר - הוא בהיקף כספי ניכר עבור חברות התרופות. החברה פיתחה את תוכנת VCP - תוכנה שמדמה חולה סרטן וירטואלי ואת דרך הטיפול בו. עגור החלה לשקוד על פיתוח הרעיון עוד כשהיתה חוקרת במכון ויצמן, לפני 25 שנה. לאחר שהבינה עגור כי אין די בכתיבת מאמרים מדעיים כדי לזרז הבאת המוצר אל השוק, היא עזבה את האקדמיה לטובת השוק הפרטי, והחל ב-99' הובילה את פיתוח יישום הרעיון. "פיתחנו מודל חיזוי מתמטי שמאפשר לערוך ניסויים בחולים וירטואלים כדי לבדוק את הצלחת הטיפול. המטרה היא לבדוק כבר בשלב מוקדם אם התרופה עובדת או לא; לפסול את התרופות שאינן מתאימות, ולהמשיך בניסוי בתרופות שיש להן סיכוי סביר להצלחה לאחר שנוסו על חולים וירטואלים", אומרת עגור. אופטימטה מנסה לשנות את הפרדיגמה בפיתוח תרופות, ולבסס אותה על מרכיב סטטיסטי של ניסוי וטעייה. לדברי עגור, עץ ההחלטה שמציעה אופטימטה אמור לחסוך כ-57% מעלות הניסויים הפרה-קליניים, ולחסוך כ-35% מעלות הניסויים הקליניים בשלב השלישי ("פייס 3") - זהו חסכון בהיקף של מאות מיליוני דולרים. "פיתחנו אלגוריתם שמדמה את התהליך הפתולוגי של גידול סרטני. אנחנו מזינים מספרים ויוצרים משוואה מתמטית, שהיא בעצם מחלת הסרטן והתרופה למחלה. אנחנו מאמינים שניתן, באמצעות מחשב, לבצע סימולציה של תהליך השפעת התרופה ולהבין מה יקרה בטווח הארוך". עוד אמרה עגור, כי במקום לטפל בחולה בכל הטיפולים שקיימים, כפי שנוהגים לטפל בסרטן או באיידס, מאפשרת המערכת להתמקד בטיפולים שנחזו מראש כמוצלחים עבור החולה המסויים, באמצעות ה"חולה הווירטואלי". עד כה שיתפה החברה פעולה עם כמה בתי חולים בניסויים עם "חולים וירטואלים", בהם בית החולים של נוטינגהם באנגליה, סורוקה בבאר שבע, הדסה בירושלים ומאיר בכפר סבא. "השוק העיקרי שאנחנו מכוונים אליו הוא השוק שאין לו הרבה כסף לטעויות: חברות הסטארט-אפ שמפתחות תרופות. שימוש ב'חולה וירטואלי' יכול גם להוזיל את עלויות הפיתוח, אבל - וזה מה שחשוב בעיקר לחברות האלה - לזרז את תהליך הפיתוח של התרופה", אומרת עגור. לדבריה, אחד היתרונות של השיטה הוא האפשרות להתמקד בצרכים של אוכלוסיה ספציפית ולבודד אותה. "המערכת יכולה לזהות את הפציינטים - היכן כדאי ומתי הזמן הכי טוב לכל תהליך תרופתי, ולפי זה להכין את התרכובת המתאימה", אומרת עגור. בשלב הראשון בודקים מה מזיק לחולים, ובשלב השני בודקים מה הטיפול שמותר לתת לחולה. מול אופטימטה מתחרות שתי חברות זרות: gene networks ו-Entelos. עד היום מומנה אופטימטה מתזרים ההכנסות והרווחים שנוצרו לה מפרויקטים שביצעה עבור חברות תרופות אחרות כמו נוברטיס ומגיוס של 2.5 מיליון דולר. החברה מעסיקה 20 עובדים בלבד. לדברי עגור, כיום על החברה לעבור משלב הפיתוח לשלב השיווק של הפתרון שפיתחה, והיא עוסקת בגיוס הון.

Home media entertainment mkt duscussed in Barron's
Barrons' cover story discusses home entertainment mkt, questioning, who will provide the boxes that feed screens, the images they display and the software that sews it all together? The stakes are enormous. 4 large industries, computer makers, consumer-electronics co's, telecom providers and entertainment creators, will feel the shock waves of rapidly developing change in the way the world consumes home entertainment." It's an enormous opportunity. Shane Robison, the chief strategy and technology officer of Hewlett-Packard, puts the annual rev from all the affected mkts north of $1 trln. And the roster of combatants eager to snatch a piece of that enormous prize is vast. Co's mentioned in article include HPQ, MSFT, MOT, CMCSA, TWX, TIVO, CHTR, SFA, INTC, GMST, YHOO, Q, SBC, VZ, BLS, AAPL, EK.

06:33  SMMX SYMYX Tech started with a Buy at Deutsche Bank; tgt $33 (27.22 ) Deutsche Bank initiates SMMX with a Buy and tgt of $33. Firm believes the co can deliver 38% compound earnings growth through 2008. They see further upside if the co succeeds in establishing itself as the dominant supplier of software for experiment and research project mgmt. Firm also believes an additional wild card is the co's stake in Ilypsa, a biotech firm focused on non-absorbed polymeric drugs.

06:29  EPAY Bottomline Tech started with a Buy at Stanford; tgt $18 (11.93 ) Stanford initiates EPAY with a Buy and tgt of $18. Firm believes substantial opportunities lie ahead for EPAY and the co is very well positioned to reap substantial benefits from two notable drivers over the next few years. They think the mandatory BACSTEL-IP payment system migration in the UK represents an enormous mkt opportunity for the co. Also, firm believes the co's Legal eXchange will generate accelerating rev growth as the product gains traction in the mkt.

06:27  OSTK Overstock.com started with a Buy at Stanford; tgt $64 (52.53 ) Stanford initiates OSTK with a Buy and tgt of $64 saying the co, one of the leading online commerce cos, has been growing revs at +80% since becoming a public co in 2002. Firm believes its rev growth, margin expansion opportunities and its brand equity are under appreciated. They think OSTK will continue to rapidly grow its revs, becoming and being recognized as a preeminent shopping destination on the web.

09:09  NVTL Novatel Wireless: Would be aggressive buyers at current levels; $19 tgt - JP Morgan (10.90 )
JP Morgan out positive on NVTL after Vodafone issued a press release announcing the presentation of its "At Home" service at CeBit 2005, scheduled to begin March 10th in Germany, as the service appears to be centered around the NVTL Ovation module. The desktop module plugs into a PC or laptop in the home or S.O.H.O., providing high-speed U.M.T.S. internet access and can replace a landline telephone as one bundled service. Firm views the announcement as an incremental positive for NVTL and believes the stock's recent sell-off has been unjustified. NVTL is their Focus List pick with $19 price tgt

Is Answers.com the Next Google?

By W.D. Crotty February 4, 2005

Tomorrow's Internet
Commentary: It's all about endless stuff to search

By Bambi Francisco, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 4:43 AM ET Oct 19, 2004

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - I can tell when the market gets frothy: My e-mail box gets flooded with information about the next-new thing.

In the last week they've been about personal entertainment computers that'll give your home a digital makeover.

Microsoft's (MSFT) "Windows Media Center 2005 has landed," was a headline from one of the dozen CNet newsletters I receive. "The Next generation of TV is Here!" was another headline from someone else.

It's all so exciting, until I go home and look at my outdated TV and VCR (yes, a VCR) in my living room. It makes me think realistically about how quickly, or not so quickly, the market will materialize for these new generation computers and appliances that let us connect our PCs to our TVs and stereos. (I read more books and spend more time outside than I do watching TV, so I'm an odd case, I'm sure.)

But it's only a matter of time before tomorrow's Internet is about searching effortlessly for entertainment on our TV's (even mine), much as we search for all sorts of information across billions of documents on the PC.

What did Bush say about tax cuts in the last debate with Kerry? That's easy: Type "Bush on taxes in debate with Kerry" into a search box on the TV set or remote control and a TV-search-results page will deliver a bunch of video clips where Bush mentioned taxes. Or, so I'm imagining. What was the advice Dr. Phil had given that had something to do with truth? Type in "Dr. Phil truth quote," and his latest segment may pop up.

That vision isn't farfetched at all when we consider how far we've come. When Google (GOOG) and eBay (EBAY) whose combined market caps top $100 billion and Amazon.com (AMZN) report third-quarter results this week, I'm sure we'll be reminded.

Importantly, these three companies didn't even exist 10 years ago, but they've profoundly changed our behavior as consumers.

"In a two-year period, less happens than we would have thought and in a 10-year period, more happens than we could ever imagined," said Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster at the Institute for the Future, whose quote I found in Pip Coburn's weekly tech-strategy report. Coburn is tech strategist at UBS Securities.

I don't suppose that search engines can help me search for misplaced items in my home, like that one biking arm warmer that's missing. And, where's a search engine when I need one to help organize my home-office-desk drawers? No such luck.

But with the launch of Google's (GOOG)desktop search last week, I imagine the technology to search everything and everywhere digital is just around the corner.

Since I uploaded the Google desktop search when the company launched the beta product, more than 33,000 items, such as my e-mails, word documents and my chat conversations have been collected. The constant search and crawling process slows my computer down a bit. But the utility is worth it.

I recently used Google's desktop search tool to find digital pictures that my brother had sent me. I probably could have found the e-mail by sorting my e-mails by sender. The problem was that I didn't know which folder to look through. Was that particular e-mail in my inbox? Or, was it in my pictures file? And, if so, which picture file would that be? Was it in the October 2004 file within my 2004B folder? You get the, er, picture.

You can imagine how satisfied I was when I searched for his pictures on the Google desktop search tool. There they were! The desktop search tool also helped me find some word documents I couldn't remember were filed on my desktop or in my document folder. Essentially, the desktop search tool collapses all the files together. And, we thought that having separate files would help organize our lives.

Of course, the desktop search works only as well as your query. So, there were many items I couldn't find at all in the desktop toolbar. For instance, I couldn't find a particular headshot of me, and typing in "Bambi bio/headshot" brought up obscure results.

The logging of my chat conversations on instant messaging was wild to see.

Sure, it's a bit disconcerting, even for someone like me who has an online presence and whose words are captured and recalled daily. Bloggers may not mind it so much.

But even this chat-logging tool needs a bit of tweaking. So, I'm sure by the time Google enhances this chat-logging product, the whole world will expect that every word spoken or written is recorded, and think nothing of it.

I'm sure a reason will come in time. After all, it wasn't long ago that I didn't have a reason to use instant messaging. Now, a third of my conversations at work are typed into that little box on my desktop. In time, someone will find a need to refer to those past conversations on instant messaging. And, it may not be the usual suspect, like New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.

The point is that the more digital our lives become, the more technology can help organize and search it.

The more we digitize, the more we have to search. When we look to the future, it seems a bit crazy to think about what we'll be doing next.

But when we look back, it's surprising how far we've actually come.

WiMax base stations and CPE to grow at 31.3% CAGR by 2009 - Digitimes Digitimes reports, citing iSuppli, revs from WiMax base-station and customer-premise equipment (CPE) sales worldwide will achieve annual growth rates of only 14-25% from 2004 through 2007. The mkt will not enter its rapid-growth phase until 2008 and 2009, when sales will rise by 47% and 66%, respectively. By 2009, the market will swell to $2.6 bln in size, rising at a CAGR of 31.3% from $503 mln last year. The excitement being generated by WiMAX concerns its capability to support data transfer rates of up to 70Mbits/sec and a range up to 30 miles, even though the technology cannot accomplish the speed and distance simultaneously. (Briefing.com note: Weekend Barron's edition highlighted several WiMax plays: AIRN, ALVR, ATHR, SRXA and PROX)

BioSante Satisfied to Be Second By Adam Feuerstein Senior Writer 9/20/2004 8:00 AM

BioSante Pharmaceuticals (BPA:Amex) is a sexy stock.

The standout opportunity amidst the small drug company's well-stocked pipeline of hormone therapy products is a testosterone gel that, if approved for sale, would be used by menopausal women to boost their flagging sex drive.

The commercial market for legitimate products to treat "female sexual dysfunction" barely exists today. This stands in stark contrast to the mountains of cash forked over by men for drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

But gender inequality over sexual dysfunction treatments is about to change, which puts BioSante in a sweet spot. And at a current stock price of $8.91 and a market cap of $164 million, the company is both underappreciated by investors and undervalued given the significant commercial potential for products like LibiGel.

There are a bunch of reasons to like the BioSante story. For starters, there is well-established science behind LibiGel, and with that foundation comes a relatively lower risk that the product blows up. Doctors have long understood that a lower-than-normal level of the hormone testosterone contributes to a waning desire for sex in women, especially women nearing, or in, menopause. When testosterone levels are boosted back to normal levels, a woman's desire for sex also returns to more normal levels.

Pfizer (PFE:NYSE) spent many years trying to prove that Viagra would also work for women, but while the drug did increase blood flow to the vagina (it does the same for a man's penis), the drug giant found that women who took Viagra did not have an increased desire for sex. This bolstered the belief that hormones play a larger role in female sex drive and forced Pfizer earlier this year to stop testing Viagra for women.

Competitor's Success Bolsters LibiGel

The best evidence of LibiGel's efficacy, so far, actually comes from a larger competitor. Procter & Gamble (PG:NYSE) is developing Intrinsa, a testosterone patch that treats female sexual dysfunction. In May, the company announced positive results from a pivotal phase III study of 562 women, who had had their ovaries removed and were therefore in menopause. Women in the study who wore the testosterone patch reported a 74% increase in the frequency of satisfying sexual activity as well as a 56% increase in sexual desire vs. baseline. Results from the study were statistically significant, and Procter & Gamble is expected to seek Intrinsa marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the year.

BioSante is currently conducting a rigorous phase II study of LibiGel in a similar patient population. Late last year, the company announced positive interim results from this study. A final analysis is expected to be made public soon, possibly by the end of September. If this LibiGel study is positive, as expected, BioSante will move quickly to begin a pivotal phase III study in early 2005. If the phase III study is positive, BioSante could file for LibiGel approval by the end of 2006.

Having a marketing giant like Procter & Gamble ahead of it in this new product category is actually an advantage for BioSante. There are no treatments currently approved specifically for the use of testosterone therapy to treat female sexual dysfunction (some doctors prescribe male testosterone hormone treatments for women, but these have to be adjusted).

This means Procter & Gamble will need to make a large marketing investment, mainly through consumer advertising, to make women aware of the condition and introduce Intrinsa. This effort will be similar in scope to what Pfizer had to do when it launched Viagra. Who better to handle this task than a consumer products giant like Proctor & Gamble? Once LibiGel is approved, BioSante will be able to glide easily into the market created by Intrinsa.

Preferred Method Helps Market Outlook

Since female sexual dysfunction is a brand-new category, it's hard to estimate the market size with complete accuracy. But scientific studies indicate that more than 40% of women experience some degree of sexual dysfunction. Analysts peg the total commercial market opportunity for products like Intrinsa and LibiGel at between $1 billion and $2 billion.

No one expects BioSante to grab majority market share from a marketing juggernaut like Procter & Gamble, but even a 10% to 20% slice of the total market will be a huge boon for the company, particularly given its current market cap. There are other companies developing similar products, including Cellegy Pharmaceuticals (CLGY:Nasdaq) .

And there are some reasons to think that women might prefer LibiGel over Intrinsa. LibiGel is a clear gel applied to a small area of the skin once per day; Intrinsa is a patch that must be worn continuously and changed every three days. Once a women rubs LibiGel into her skin, it disappears without any residue and the testosterone is absorbed over 24 hours; patches like Intrinsa can cause skin irritation and could fall off.

LibiGel might be the brightest light in BioSante's drug pipeline, but it's not there by itself. The company is developing five other male and female hormone treatment products, including Bio-T-Gel, a male testosterone therapy that is expected to be marketed by Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA:Nasdaq) in exchange for royalty payments. For women, BioSante is also in late-stage clinical trials with Bio-E-Gel estrogen therapy.

Tech stocks future looks bad - Barron's Barron's highlights high-tech strategist Fred Hickey's picks. Fred's is bearish as ever on the techs. He has been right as rain on the group, and, most particularly, on the awesome inventory buildup that has been in train for many months now and was too quickly seized upon as evidence of a gathering boom in tech. Inventories are still huge, he reports, and, in many cases, still building. As Fred points out, "There's so much unused capacity in the communications world that even the next big new thing in technology, VoIP won't make a dent in the glut over the next few years." Another hot area, flat-panel display, which go into PCs and TVs, is starting to feel the effects of mounting overcapacity and things will get only worse as producers all rush to put the finishing touches on multi-bn-dollar expansions of their facilities. He offers a similarly dire analysis of cellphones. He cautions that 2/3 of all the wireless phones sold worldwide this year will be replacement units, and since consumers tend to upgrade their mobile phones every 3 or 4 years, simple math suggests a "slowdown is coming." And he would give the chip co's, Intel (INTC) first and foremost, wide berth. In fact, Intel is his largest bearish position. He also has bought puts on, among others, Texas Instruments (TXN), STMicroelectronics (STM), KLA Tencor (KLAC), Linear Technology (LLTC), Dell (DELL) and Research in Motion (RIMM). He's eager to do the same on Broadcom (BRCM), Silicon Labs (SLAB) and Applied Materials (AMAT) should the stocks bounce. He looks for bad news, too, from Ericsson (ERICY), Lexmark (LXK) and is steadfastly negative on Xilinx (XLNX), Maxim (MXIM) and Altera (ALTR). Tech bulls, Fred suggests, had "better find Noah's Ark" because, odds are, they'll be hit by a deluge of negative earnings warnings and more unsettling indications of inventory glut "over the next 40 days and 40 nights." High up on his shopping list are software stocks-Lawson Software (LWSN), Novell (NOVL), Compuware (CPWR), Siebel Systems (SEBL), Sybase (SY) and Netiq (NTIQ).