Building Wealth Doc's note: We're in a platinum age of health care. Medical advances are happening at a quicker pace than we've ever seen before.
In today's issue (adapted from the September 2022 Prosperity Investor issue), we share the story of someone who benefited from a new lifesaving drug, and what this boon in health care could mean for your portfolio...
She was certain she was weeks from death...
In the late 2000s, Lori Alf had a stubborn cough. She also had pain in her ribs and back, and she had difficulty breathing. Lori thought she had a nasty cold. But after her doctor treated her symptoms, they just wouldn't go away.
Further testing of her blood and urine revealed a concerning protein. This protein, called M-protein, or paraprotein, is found in people with certain blood cancers.
After a bone-marrow biopsy, doctors discovered the worst. They diagnosed Lori with advanced-stage multiple myeloma.
Her doctor and family were horrified. This cancer strikes more men than woman... and typically in their mid-60s. Lori was in her early 40s, a mother of three, and sadly, had an aggressive form of the disease. Five-year survival for this disease is slightly better than a coin flip, at only 55%. And it was thought to be only treatable, not curable.
Multiple myeloma hijacks a type of white blood cell called plasma cells. These are responsible for making antibodies that kill germs in our bodies. As the cancerous cells multiply, they build up in bone marrow and produce dysfunctional antibodies that interfere with major organs like the kidneys.
Lori and her husband traveled from their home in Florida to a myeloma expert at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
Doctors gave her a chemotherapy cocktail that would smash down the cancer enough to salvage some of her own stem cells. These stem cells could be used for a bone marrow transplant. But Lori's cancer was tough. After nine months, the chemo wasn't working.
So her doctors started a second round with more aggressive chemo drugs... It worked. Doctors completed the stem-cell transplant. But the good news didn't last long.
Within weeks, it was apparent the cancer was progressing again. And the nightmare stretched out for the next several years...
Lori spent her time in and out of the hospital, having blood transfusions and other care that only treated her worsening symptoms. There wasn't much more the doctors could do.
In 2014, and at only 80 pounds, it looked as if Lori was at the end.
But a ray of hope shone from a new study that was about to get underway at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers were looking for volunteers with advanced forms of myeloma... just like Lori's. They were testing a new therapy called chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, or "CAR T-cell" for short.
This was cutting-edge stuff. The therapy removes the patient's own immune cells, genetically reengineers them to attack only cancer, and then infuses them back into the body. Doctors essentially create a drug from living tissue that is tailored directly to each patient.
Lori had exhausted nearly every option for treatment when she was enrolled in an early-stage clinical trial. Her bone marrow was 95% clogged with myeloma tumors.
What happened next was nothing short of miraculous. Nearly seven years after Lori began her battle, the radiology scans showed no tumor cells.
None. Zero... She remains alive and well today.
The underlying treatment she was administered was granted breakthrough status with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") – a regulatory classification aimed to speed the process of approval for lifesaving treatments.
Her treatment is one of the earliest examples of the cancer treatments now known as immunotherapy. This method uses the body's own immune cells to fight cancer. Since Lori's treatment, researchers believe many more kinds of cancer can be treated this way.
The scientific community has been building new and better drugs for years. And they're coming at a quicker pace.
The chart below shows the number of new drugs approved by the FDA since 2000. At the turn of the century, the FDA approved about 25 drugs per year on average. That has now risen to over 50 per year.
This is driven by new disease threats, like COVID-19, that sparked innovation. It also stems from a modern-day resurgence of diseases like monkeypox and polio.
But the real traction is being driven by new therapies, like the one that led to Lori Alf's miraculous recovery. These are aimed at cancer, heart disease, and rare diseases. Many are called "biologic" drugs, meaning they're created from living material sources – like humans, animals, and other microorganisms. The COVID-19 vaccine is a good example of a new biologics medicine.
These cutting-edge medicines cover a wide range of products from vaccines to blood components to gene therapy. They offer newfound hope for treatment of diseases with no current cure. They can also be targeted to a specific disease within a specific person.
Our company, Stansberry Research, has a long history of spotting groundbreaking medical advancements before they receive FDA approval.
Our firm has shown some readers how to make double- and triple-digit gains within months of stories publishing.
But today, there's a story far bigger than anything we ever reported on in the past.
It's the "great white whale" of FDA approval stories. We're in the early days of a massive shift in the world of health care.
Analysts report a flood of money is flowing into one small corner of the market, and it's set to grow as much as 621% over the next four years.
Morgan Stanley expects it to reach $54 billion by the end of the decade.
It's a remarkable medical story, perhaps the biggest in a generation.
And there's one company standing at the helm of all this – a company that's perfectly positioned to be among the prime benefactors of this astounding growth.
If you want to get in early on this opportunity, click here to learn more.
Best regards,
Thomas Carroll with Dr. David Eifrig