I just got back from Los Angeles.
There, I met with a couple dozen companies that were potential recommendations for my premium micro-cap advisory.
That was on the heels of a research trip to Vegas. And in the coming weeks, I’ve got two more trips planned to visit folks in New York and Greenville, South Carolina.
See, people run companies.
This simple fact is the most important thing to remember as an investor.
When you invest in a company, you’re investing in the people who run it.
So, you need to get to know them as well as you can... or have someone on your side, like me, get to know them for you.
I spend a lot of time on the road doing just that.
In fact, I recently wrote about three of the exciting companies I met with in Vegas.
I’m sharing another company from that trip I’m keeping in my micro-cap “incubator” for now. To be clear: I’m not officially recommending this stock today. But it’s one to keep on your radar.
- Canine cancer screenings made simple...
Most of us love dogs.
How can you not? Just look at this adorable little thing:
Source: hannah grace @oddityandgrace
More than half of all American households own a dog. The vast majority—85%, according to Forbes—consider their dogs members of the family.
Unfortunately, dogs get sick just like we do. And they age a lot faster. So, age-related diseases like cancer become a big risk for many dogs before their 10th birthday.
There are about 84 million pet dogs in the US. And about 6 million receive a cancer diagnosis every year.
A cancer diagnosis is bad enough. But it’s worse for dogs because they often don’t receive a diagnosis until after they become symptomatic, and the cancer is already late-stage.
At that point, there are no good options. You can put the dog down. Or try to make it as comfortable as possible until it passes away naturally.
Most dogs get diagnosed with cancer after they’ve already progressed to late-stage because we don’t have inexpensive, safe tools to screen them.
That’s where VolitionRx (VNRX) comes in with its patented Nu.Q Vet Cancer Screening Test.
Nu.Q Vet is a simple, inexpensive blood test that screens for common canine cancers. The idea is to make the test part of a dog’s annual wellness check starting at around age seven.
The test detects about 80% of the most common canine cancers (with a very low false positive rate) before the dog shows symptoms. So, you’re catching the cancer a lot earlier, which leaves more options for treatment on the table.
VolitionRx has already signed some potentially lucrative licensing deals with some of the biggest companies in the animal health diagnostics space.
The annual potential revenue opportunity for canine cancer screenings is about $4.5 billion. That’s huge for a company with a market cap of just $100 million.
VolitionRx is also studying Nu.Q Vet for cat cancer screenings, and for cancer monitoring in both dogs and cats. These additional use cases add another $6.4 billion to the annual revenue opportunity.
- But Nu.Q Vet isn’t the only exciting thing going on at VolitionRx...
The company is also developing simple, inexpensive blood tests to screen for cancer and other conditions in humans.
Nu.Q NETs is the human test furthest along in development. (NETs is an acronym for neutrophil extracellular traps.)
It’s a test that can potentially monitor sepsis patients and warn doctors before a patient progresses to severe sepsis.
Most folks don’t realize how big of a health crisis sepsis is today.
According to the CDC, at least 1.7 million adult Americans develop sepsis each year, and nearly 300,000 die as a result. That’s about the same as the number of deaths caused by the five deadliest cancers combined.
Nu.Q NETs could help doctors save many of these patients.
The annual revenue opportunity for Nu.Q NETs is north of $20 billion.
So, there’s a lot going on at VolitionRx. And the company has enormous potential.
That said, VolitionRx and its partners have just started the commercial rollout of Nu.Q Vet. And I want to see that translate into some revenue acceleration before I pull the trigger on the stock.
Chris Wood
Chief Investment Officer, RiskHedge
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