X-Message-Number: 6092
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: "investing in cryonics"
Date: 17 Apr 96 04:46:27 GMT
Message-ID: <>
References: <4kj5d9$> <>

	I agree with John de Rivaz that investing in the cryonics
company that cares for you (or even a diversified portfolio of
cryonics companies) for the purpose of funding your cryonics
care is a bad idea.  Yes, it is probable (but not absolutely
necessary) that your cryonics organization will have grown and
prospered if you are ever revived.  It is even more probable
(but again not absolutely necessary) that the cryonics industry
as a whole will have grown if you are ever revived.  But neither
assumption is certain-- not certain enough to bet your life
on.

	This recognition is what is behind the recent trend in
cryonics for cryonics organizations to create an "arms-length"
relationship with the funds that pay for their patients' care.
Ideally, you want patient care funds sufficiently distanced
from your cryonics organization that the organization could fail
completely, and your funds would still remain intact and able to
continue maintenance payments to a successor organization. 

	John suggests investing in pharmaceutical companies and
other "high tech" stocks to ride the wave of progress that must
occur if is cryonics is to succeed.  I would go further though, and
suggest a downright boring conventionally-managed conservative portfolio 
of diversied equities and bonds.  Picking winning industries
like "hi tech" is easy.  Picking winning companies is very, very
hard.  For all we know, today's trendy "high tech" companies, instead
of creating the technologies of the future, may all be driven
into the ground by the new companies that really will.  (I wonder
how many fortunes were speculatively invested in vacuum tube  
companies after Eniac was built?)

	The same may be true of today's for-profit cryonics
companies.  They may all fail, and yet cryonics as a movement
may still succeed (driven by companies that don't yet exist).
Still, for those interested in some speculation, and (much
more importantly) *pushing cryonics technology ahead* I list
below all for-profit companies I know of that are tightly
involved with cryonics.  They are (in order of apparent size):

21st Century Medicine
Trans Time
BioPreservation
CryoSpan
CryoSearch

	These companies are all privately held, but (with the
possible exception of BioPreservation) they welcome new investors.
21st Century Medicine and BioPreservation work closely together,
and now hold patents on some of the most innovative technologies
in cryonics.  Information about BioPreservation and CryoSpan
can be found within the CryoCare Web pages.

***************************************************************************
Brian Wowk          CryoCare Foundation               1-800-TOP-CARE
President           Human Cryopreservation Services   
   http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/

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