Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[TheProgressive]

Let's clear up some misconceptions about B and the Poly assets once and for all. This is not a stupid question, but I do see some posts that I think are not quite clear on the topic. Here is the way I understand it, anyone please correct me if I am wrong:

First off, the collapse of Polymedix was due to a sequence of events that sent the company into a rapid death spiral. First, the company's anti-stroke drug delparantag, has some serious adverse effects (hypotension) in its phase 2 trial which effectively killed its clinical trial progress at that time. Leo made comments in last year's R&R that they are in a great position to play "monday morning quarterback" with delparantag, to analyze and look at a potential reformulation that would address the hypotension SAEs. If anyone can do it, my money is on Dr. Menon and Dr. Jorgensen.

Anyways, some investors were outraged and claimed that the company downplayed these concerns while reaping the benefits of a suspiciously timely stock offering. Secondly, the failure of delparantag clinically had obvious dramatic impact on the share price causing it to plummet, and simultaneously killed the prospects for future financing for Brilacidin, which was all but ready to start the FDA approved phase 2B trial. This is where Leo so expertly picked up and carried the ball across the goal line for CTIX shareholders.

In a sense, Polymedix was very similar to where CTIX is now, in market cap (roughly 220 million at one point), a very respected pipeline, and respected (up until that point) management, also at a similar stage of product development. But the similarities end there.

We are fortunate to be invested in a company with a very progressive and proactive CEO. He is moving the entire pipeline along as swiftly as he possibly can, with the protection of the Aspire agreement to see all the current trials through to their end to give the pipeline a chance to bring some revenue back to the company and shareholders. I know some people are not fans of Aspire, but it is an absolutely critical component to providing solid financial footing for this young company so that all 3 main compounds can be developed safely without the risk of a financial crash such as the one that happened at PYMX.

Finally, with regards to your question as to how CTIX got these assets for so cheap, and why didn't a big pharma step in to buy them if the potential here was so good, well the bottom line is CTIX was able to move very rapidly to make a stalking horse bid on these assets, and the reality is that many bigger pharmas would need more deliberation and approvals to make such a move. Leo and Dr. Menon clearly were on the same page and moved with speed to get their bid in as quickly as possible.

Also, this bid happened during the summer months, where IMO a lot of the right people needed at big pharma were either on vacation or asleep at the wheel before they realized the opportunity that they had missed on. Still, from a skeptic's point of view - it is fair to say that this purchase is "too good to be true", and I believe part of this skepticism is why the market has essentially assigned no value to the poly assets since CTIX has acquired them.

But I believe this lag in the market positions smaller investors like us with higher risk tolerances an opportunity to get in early, get in cheap, and get in often before the phase 2B Brilacidin results are known. If B works as we all hope on a single dose, then just from Brilacidin alone the return on the Poly investment for shareholders should be a 10-20 bagger as soon as Leo can cut a deal with big pharma to partner up for a phase 3 trial. This could set up for a very dramatic move up in stock price as Brilacidin would come one step closer to maturation and commercialization.

All IMO, like I said, someone please correct me if I am wrong or I mis-understood the whole PYMX story, I know there are some former PYMX holders here that have all the gory details down better than I do.

Bottom line is, we are on the cusp of potentially validating one of the greatest under the radar acquisitions that you could ever come across in biotech, IMO. If B is a success in ABSSSI, and in all the other indications that the company is working on testing it, then the potential revenue this drug can bring in will be fantastic. Perhaps the recent volume and SP action recently are an indication of the increasing awareness of this potential.