The MIT Quant, and head of AlphaSimplex Group proposes a fund to invest in biotechnology cures for cancer.

The source article is here and Mr. Lo's proposal is here.

Born in Hong Kong and raised in New York City, Lo lost his mother last year to lung cancer. He, like many people, also has watched friends and colleagues struggle with the disease in its various forms.

As an economist, he said, “I felt pretty helpless.’’

So he decided to focus on an area where he could have an impact: funding sources for cancer research.

In his Nature Biotechnology paper, Lo calls the current business model for drug research and development flawed, noting that the number of drug applications per dollar of spending is declining, and pharmaceutical stocks as a group have fared poorly over the past decade.

Under Lo’s proposal, the oncology fund could pour money into more speculative, early-stage research in exchange for a percentage of future royalties or proceeds from sales of intellectual property. A successful cancer drug can generate $2 billion a year in revenue, he said.

The excellent blog Six Figure investing did a profile of one my favorite ETN's, the Barclays S&P Veqtor ETN. We use this product in several of our strategies at Schenley Park Advisors. You may find the profile here.

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To further point out it’s not all fun in the sun, LA, Miami, Phoenix, and Las Vegas were among the cities with the greatest number of jobs leaving their cities since 2007.  Add Chicago and Detroit to the bottom five and the trend shows jobs are escaping extreme climates. 

The past year, from February to February, NYC again had the largest gain in employment but not to be unrepresented, Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta follow behind New York.  The only major cities during the past year to experience negative employment change were Providence Rhode Island and Sacramento California. 

Certainly the boom in energy related fields, especially through shale exploration, accounts for the Texas and sunbelt growth.  It is interesting to see the shift away from the Northeast and into the middle of the country as workers follow jobs.