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Public Intellectuals

Public Intellectuals and Biotech Stocks

Ronald G. Landes

The stock market is a platform for the transfer of capital from all varieties of clever and avaricious creatures...mega-institutions, fools, ciphers and layabouts lucky enough to be heirs to fortunes...to those who need it to enable productive work.

Stock markets have been so exhaustively analyzed that it is inconceivable that you will find anything new here. Yet I'll take a stab at it: I am interested to know if bioscientists, whose opinions of technologies that drive biotech companies are informed by deep knowledge and analytical capabilities, might have an edge in stock picking. To find out about this, I propose an experiment.

Landes Bioscience will fund a biotech investment account. Investment decisions will be made solely by me with the advise of the stock market equivalent of the bioscience College of Cardinals [bCoC]: simply the first 20 bioscientists who sign on. Here are the terms of the experiment.

* The fund will start out with $20,000.
* The duration of the fund will be five years.
* When the fund ceases operation, whatever assets are in it will be disbursed equally to the bCoC.
* Stock decisions of the fund will be published regularly in Cell Cycle.
* The identity of the bCoC will not be disclosed.

Few things in life are quite as gratifying as living well, especially if it is managed off the ideas and effort of others. Clearly, this is what investing capital is all about, and it is a particularly attractive pursuit when investing someone else's money.

I like the idea of public intellectuals at the interface between science and commerce. This is the call for 20 bioscientists throughout the world to join me in that space.

Ronald G. Landes
rgl@eurekah.com

Authors

Ronald G. Landes

Landes Bioscience; Austin, TX