From Snake Oil to Systems Reprogrammer: What Tennessee Taught Rose Bengal
When new leadership stepped in at Provectus in 2017—armed with strategy, spreadsheets, stubbornness, and Southern grit—there were two phrases hanging like ghosts in the biotech air: “Snake oil.” “Magic bullet.” Neither one helped.
Snake oil, because Provectus’s Rose Bengal Sodium (RBS) sounded too good to be true. Multiple disease areas? One molecule? Get real.1
Magic bullet, because Big Pharma doesn’t dream in systems—the pharmaceutical industry dreams in single-indication, single-target, single-drug models. Magic bullet is tidy. It fits in a neat new drug application and fits even neater on quarterly earnings slides.2
But the RBS molecule we pursued in our efforts to save Provectus and its emerging medical science doesn’t follow a magic bullet script. RBS doesn’t pick a favorite receptor. It doesn’t focus on a single target. It doesn’t play nice with a Big Pharma PowerPoint template.
So, what did we do?
We stopped trying to contort RBS into someone else’s idea of a drug.
We embraced the complexity.
We let the science tell us where the molecule belonged. Spoiler alert: it belonged in cancer immunology, infectious disease, inflammatory pathologies, and maybe more.
We rebuilt Provectus quietly, carefully—without hype, without smoke, and definitely without snakes.
Today, RBS is what we always suspected:
A small molecule with system-level intelligence.
Not a magic bullet.
Not a bottle of hope water.
But something else entirely—something new.
If you’re looking for what’s next in biotech—not just the next target, but the next paradigm—it may come with a Tennessee twang, and be a molecule that refuses to fit in the box.
Forward-Looking Statements
The information provided in this Provectus Substack Post may include forward-looking statements, within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, relating to the business of Provectus and its affiliates, which are based on currently available information and current assumptions, expectations, and projections about future events and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Such statements are made in reliance on the safe harbor provisions of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements are often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as “aim,” “likely,” “outlook,” “seek,” “anticipate,” “budget,” “plan,” “continue,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “project,” “projection,” “predict,” “potential,” “targeting,” “intend,” “can,” “could,” “might,” “should,” “believe,” and similar words suggesting future outcomes or statements regarding an outlook.
The safety and efficacy of Provectus’s drug agents and/or their uses under investigation have not been established. There is no guarantee that the agents will receive health authority approval or become commercially available in any country for the uses being investigated or that such agents as products will achieve any revenue levels.
Due to the risks, uncertainties, and assumptions inherent in forward-looking statements, readers should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this Provectus Substack Post are made as of the date hereof or as of the date specifically specified herein, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information, future events, or otherwise, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. The forward-looking statements are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.
Risks, uncertainties, and assumptions include those discussed in the Company’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including those described in Item 1A of Provectus’ Annual Report on Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2024.
There was skepticism of Provectus and its rose bengal sodium from the 2010s, such as on Biotwitter, SeekingAlpha, and elsewhere, and by extension its non-clinical research collaborators and its clinical trial collaborators for suggesting “a clothing dye that could be bought from any medical supply store” might have anti-cancer properties.
Snake oil is a pejorative term for a drug substance or treatment with assumed exaggerated or false claims, often lacking scientific validation, mechanistic clarity, or clinical evidence. The term implies that the therapy is not evidence-based or reproducible, lacks a well-understood mechanism of action, and is often associated with multi-functionality that seems too good to be true. The term snake oil is frequently used to discredit drugs that appear non-specific, broad-acting, or developed outside traditional pharmaceutical channels (i.e., like a drug being developed in Knoxville, TN, and not Boston/Cambridge, the Bay Area, or other recognized pharma or biotech hubs).
Magic bullet has a positive association or connotation in the pharmaceutical industry as a presumed scientifically-designed drug that targets a single receptor or mechanism with high specificity to cure or control a specific disease. The term implies high selectivity, usually for one indication or molecular target, and fits neatly into Big Pharma’s drug development model: one drug, one target, one indication. Exciting drug treatments developed by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are often considered magic bullets until they aren’t.
Ironically, the magic bullet term was coined by Paul Ehrlich in the early-20th century to refer to a treatment that targets disease without harming the patient.