X-Message-Number: 3101
Date: 09 Sep 94 23:26:30 EDT
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: CRYONICS CryoSpan Report #1
To Cryonet readers:
The following report is being sent to all those on the ACS and
CryoCare mailing lists who are either current or prospective clients of
CryoSpan. It is being posted here for the interest of those who may not
be on either of those lists.
The CryoSpan Report
Issue No 1 - September 1994
Editor and Publisher
Paul Wakfer, CEO
CryoSpan, Inc.
10743 Civic Center Drive
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730
Phone: (909)987-3883 FAX: (909)987-7253
Pager: (800)805-2870 Email:
The Purpose of This Report
This bi-monthly report will provide information about activities of
CryoSpan, Inc. which have taken place, or are planned to take place.
The information should be of interest to all those concerned with
increasing their chances for a vastly extended lifespan. Comments,
questions or criticisms about any aspect of this report or the operation
of CryoSpan are very welcome. The report may print letters to the
editor, and contain a question and answer section, if such appear to be
useful for communications purposes.
Since this is the initial report, I will begin by describing
CryoSpan's founding purpose or mission, why its goals are important to
you, its current financial position, and its current earnings potential.
Future reports will then be simply updates to previous ones.
CryoSpan's Mission, Importance, Finances and Earnings Potential
The mission of CryoSpan is to provide the cryonics patient with the
cool-down and the long-term care which is the safest, most inexpensive,
and the most conducive to his/her future restoration to life and health
that it is currently known how to do. To this end, CryoSpan is
constantly researching, updating and perfecting its business practices,
and its cooling/storage techniques and equipment. In order to more
quickly reach the stability of larger volume operations and to diversify
its business, CryoSpan is actively seeking other types of cryogenic
storage business. The founder and CEO of CryoSpan, Paul Wakfer, is
well-suited to conduct this business successfully due to his background
in engineering, mathematics & physics, his three years of current full-
time cryonics experience, and his past years of practical business
experience.
The benefits to the life extensionist of CryoSpan being successful in
its business are:
1) If you should have to undergo human cryopreservation, you will be
efficiently and safely cared for until such time as your restoration
can take place. Cost-effectiveness of the care always takes second
place to safety in keeping a patient cryopreserved, however, the more
efficient is the use of your long-term care funding, the more long-
term security you will have, and the more capital there will be to
fund your restoration and re-entry into society.
2) Furthermore, it is my belief that cryonics must be enormously
enlarged if it is to gain the research and development funding, the
numerically strong demand, and the social clout necessary to restore
its cryopreserved patients which will likely include you and I. The
growth and success of CryoSpan will very likely be a major factor
contributing to the expansion of cryonics which must take place.
Currently, CryoSpan has assets of $21,500, including $20,700 in
dewars and other equipment and $800 dollars in the bank. It has no
receivables and no payables. Its only liabilities are $450 in security
deposits for its patients. It has received $22,950 from sales of its
stock. Its income from services to date this year has been $2600 and
its expenses have been $3500.
Although CryoSpan has received more than sufficient investment and
income to fund its current purchases and to pay its expenses for the
near future, and even though its owners are pledged to keep it viable,
currently, CryoSpan is not a profitable company. For at least the next
5 years, low patient volumes together with the high capital requirements
of start-up and expansion will prevent CryoSpan from achieving
profitability in the human or animal long-term care portion of its
business. However, if cryonics grows at the rate forecast, after 10
years, a forecast over 50% profit margin will allow CryoSpan to fully
fund its own capital equipment procurement and return a reasonable
profit as well. From that point on the growth rate of cryonics and the
fact that almost all aspects of long-term patient care can be automated
(by using triply redundant auto-correcting systems and with autodialing
to multiple persons on-call as a last resort) so that the cost of care
per patient will be extremely low, could give CryoSpan enormous profit
margins and returns to its owners. For example, it is expected that by
the end of 20 years of operation, the share price of CryoSpan will have
multiplied 100-fold. In fact, based on current yearly charges
(increasing with inflation) the forecast profit margin is so great that
one can be sure that a decrease in yearly charges (after accounting for
inflation) will take place. If CryoSpan is successful in attracting
other types of storage business, its growth and profitability could be
considerably accelerated.
Therefore, if you are looking for a really long-term investment with
enormous profit potential (a rational choice for those seeking vastly
extended life-spans) which at the same time increases your chances of
reanimation, a long-term care provider such as CryoSpan, makes good
sense. As I often say, if you invest in the cryonics business, either
you loose your investment completely and don't get reanimated (so
therefore why care about the lost investment), or the cryonics company
in which you invested grows tremendously along with cryonics, and when
you are restored to health and vigor, you are very wealthy. (Ask
CryoSpan for a copy of their 20-year forecast and business plan.)
CryoSpan's Accomplishments and Plans
1) As of August 30, 1994, CryoSpan has in its care, three human neuro
patients and three animal neuro patients. It has purchased, and
fully paid for, a big-foot dewar, including its internal partitions,
and is ready to accept its first whole-body patient. Currently,
CryoSpan's patients are kept in a mid-sized dewar being rented from
Cryovita Laboratories, and they are monitored 24 hours per day by a
computer attached to a temperature logger with alarm output to a
telephone autodialer. The temperature logger is manually read
several times daily and the liquid nitrogen is topped-up, as required
by the dewar's boil-off, approximately every 3 weeks. Unfortunately,
even though the total daily boil-off of this dewar is less than that
of a big-foot, the boil-off per patient is much higher. The
realities of startup are such that until CryoSpan gets more patients
or other business, and can use its larger big-foot dewar to reduce
the LN2 cost per patient, its income will be less than its costs.
This is one of the many reasons why CryoSpan will require major
capital funding during its startup years.
2) CryoSpan's President, Paul Wakfer, has made a discovery which, when
implemented, will allow CryoSpan dewars to have a boil-off rate at
least 30% less (and possibly 50% less) than that of comparable dewars
at other long-term care providers. A patent will be sought for this
idea and its implementation, and when this patent is attained, the
technology can be licensed to other organizations which are providing
long-term cryogenic storage. Since almost half the yearly cost of
long-term patient care, even with high volumes, is projected to be
the cost of liquid nitrogen to replenish that which boils off, the
income from this discovery, through licensing, and the use of the
idea by CryoSpan itself, should give CryoSpan a major edge in profit
margin over other long-term care providers. The projected cost of
completing the engineering of this idea and proceeding with a patent
application is approximately $3000.00.
3) CryoSpan's Vice-President, Mark Connaughton, has made engineering
drawings of the internal pod structures of the big-foot dewars which
both Alcor and CryoSpan use. This was done by obtaining the pod
measurements from Hugh Hixon of Alcor, in exchange for a finished set
of drawings. Mark also found a company to fabricate the pods which
was much less expensive than the previous fabricator and which did a
more complete job. Mark has made a pod hoisting tool and will be
building the rolling gantry crane which will be used to lift the pods
in and out of the dewars. In addition, he will be generating
engineering drawings for the dewars themselves. The cost of
materials for the rolling gantry crane will be approximately $1000.00
including a 3-ton manual hoist which will be capable of lifting a
fully loaded dewar into (or out of, if necessary) its underground
housing.
4) At the moment, CryoSpan has an empty big-foot dewar and is ready to
accept whole-body patients. However, after the first such patient
reaches liquid nitrogen (LN2) temperature, the dewar will need to be
kept full of LN2 and will therefore be unavailable for the cool-down
phase of a second whole-body patient (which is done with only a small
amount of LN2 in the bottom of the dewar in order that the cool-down
is slow and gradual). When volumes are larger, CryoSpan will
purchase an empty dewar ahead of time to use for backup (just in case
one of the dewars containing patients looses vacuum) and to allow the
bulk purchase of LN2. However, because of the financial burden of
initially purchasing 2 big-foot dewars which may sit empty for
months, CryoSpan will not purchase a second big-foot until the first
is closer to containing enough patients that there is not enough
backup space for them in all the other dewars and LN2 containers that
are in the facility in which CryoSpan is located. Instead, CryoSpan
plans to build a large horizontal cool-down container which will also
be capable of transporting patients already at LN2 temperature, and
of short-term storage of patients in LN2. In addition, such a
container will be very useful for some of the research work which
will be conducted at the facility. Because, without it, CryoSpan is
ill-equipped to accept a second whole-body patient immediately after
its first, it is important to build this container as soon as
possible at an estimated cost of $5000.
5) CryoSpan has received proposals from, and had consultations with, 4
engineering and contracting firms concerning the construction of an
underground vault in which to locate its big-foot dewars. Such a
vault, if designed correctly, should, in one "fell swoop", solve most
of the safety and security problems associated with long-term patient
care. Not only would CryoSpan's patients be secure from the danger
of earthquakes (unfortunately very real and imminent in Southern
California), but they would also be secure from fire, flood, theft,
tornado, terrorist activities, and civil strife. CryoSpan intends to
obtain expert certification of its vault, to this effect. When this
is completed, CryoSpan will have, unquestionably, the safest patient
care facility in the world of cryonics. Construction will begin soon
on a space large enough to house 2 bigfoot dewars at a cost to
completion of $20,000.
6) A necessary acquisition related to the security aspects of the
underground vault, is the purchase of a small above ground vault and
a backup motor-generator to provide power to the LN2 monitoring
equipment, the sump-pump located in the bottom of the underground
vault for flood-damage prevention purposes, and, later, the automatic
filling equipment. In the beginning phase, while patients are still
contained in the dewar on loan from Cryovita, we intend to protect
them by housing that dewar in this above-ground vault. Because
CryoSpan's neuro patients are currently not ideally protected from
the threat of an earthquake, we would like to purchase this above
ground vault as soon as possible at a cost of $5000. It is
anticipated that the sump-pump and motor generator will cost about
$1500, although these will not be essential until we get our first
whole-body patient and start using the big-foot dewar. The
development and construction costs of the automated monitoring system
including temperature and level measurement, with alarm outputs to
horn and autodialer should cost about $3000. The automatic filling
system will not need to be developed until the number of dewars in
operation is sufficient to make the purchase of LN2 in bulk, cost
effective. This is anticipated to be at least two years away.
7) CryoSpan also needs an automated system for the controlled cool-down
of humans and animals from dry-ice temperature to that of LN2
preparatory to immersion. Development and implementation of this
system, which will enable both tighter control of a particular cool-
down protocol as well as the flexibility to allow experimentation
with different cool-down protocols (on animals) will cost
approximately $3000.00.
8) Because of its anticipated short-term, low volumes of patients and
the consequent drain on its limited resources, CryoSpan has just
begun investigating the possibility of obtaining additional income
from the cryogenic storage of the following kinds of tissue.
a) The bone marrow of living humans which has the following
applications:
i) stored when a person is young, it can be used to "reboot" the
immune system if it is damaged due to aging or chemo/radiation
therapy or poisoning,
ii) it preserves the person's young DNA for cloning or other
future medical use, and
iii) it may be useful for the medical treatment of one's
progeny.
b) The sperm of living humans.
c) DNA containing tissue samples of endangered species.
d) The skin, corneas and other useful parts of recently deceased
humans either from those who do not elect to be cryopreserved
or, possibly, from the bodies of those who have elected neuro-
cryopreservation. As cryopreservation of other organs and
tissues is perfected, they would be added to the list of those
which CryoSpan would store and make available to the medical
and scientific communities.
e) The brains of animals, and of humans who have not elected
cryopreservation, for the purposes of neuroscientific research
with regard to both brain diseases and the understanding of
memory, consciousness, and other mental processes.
It should be understood that none of this type of "banking" may be
profitable for CryoSpan to pursue because of the high costs of
special processing necessary, and the myriad of regulations which
may have to be satisfied. This is just what CryoSpan's
investigation will attempt to determine before any major planning
is conducted and commitments made.
Contributing to the project of YOUR choice
If you wish to contribute to the initiation, the execution, and the
success of any project mentioned in this report, there are several ways,
or combinations of them, in which this can be done:
1) Contribute your labor by committing several hours time per week to
the project or projects of your choice. All time contributions,
which must, of course, be scheduled ahead, will be assessed a
monetary value and the contributor will receive shares in CryoSpan
according to the assessed value of labor contributed. The building
in which CryoSpan is located has full kitchen and bathroom/shower
facilities and can accommodate up to 4 over-night guests/workers.
These will be available to labor contributors.
2) Donate money earmarked proportionately to the projects of your
choice to a tax-exempt organization which promises to give the
money, or a substantial part of it, to CryoSpan to carry out the
project. Make sure that you get an iron-clad guarantee ahead of
time that the money will be passed on, and earmarked, according to
your wishes. The Life Extension Foundation is one organization
which has agreed to pass on 100% of your donation to be used for
the purposes that you have specified and to also give you a tax
receipt for that donation. All such donations whether monthly,
quarterly, or by lump sum, are very welcome.
3) With respect to investing in CryoSpan, you should contact its
President directly at the phone numbers or email address given on
page one. This report is not a solicitation for the purchase of
shares in CryoSpan.
Guaranteed Use of Contributed Funds
CryoSpan guarantees to handle contributed money, which has been
earmarked for a specific purpose, in the following manner:
1) if sufficient funds become available to proceed with the earmarked
project, use it for that purpose, or
2) if insufficient funding is available within six months to proceed
with a particular project, either return the money to the
contributor, or obtain his/her permission to use it for a different
purpose.
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