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ADXS' fiscal year ends October 31, so I could see them potentially announcing the deal tomorrow or Wednesday (the 31st) so that the upfront payment is on their balance sheet for year-end reporting purposes, then the conference call follows on Friday.
Also, I doubt Ken would have used the term "late stage" not once but twice in the press release to describe the company if he were about to shut down our only late stage program.
Batermere, if Berlin announces a deal next week thats gets us back to the $7 range, your 10k shares will benefit but you won't be too happy with having already sold the majority of your stake for a loss. It is not too late to buy your stake back on Monday for under a dollar (assuming there is not a deal press release before the open).
I'm hopeful we'll see a deal next week, but don't want to get my expectations up too much on the potential valuation reset. I'd be happy if we just got back to the $7 range this year where we were when O'Connor was fired and the Board was caught flat footed with no succession plan that led to a wasted year with a do-nothing interim CEO resulting in the company having to do two dilutions at the worst possible terms.
I doubt their PR language would use the term "late-stage" twice if they shutting down their late stage AXAL program.
Their fiscal year ends at the end of October, so their quarterly numbers will not be out by next Friday, so it is not a normal quarterly earnings call.
Also, the first sentence of the press release refers to the company as "late-stage". I highly doubt they would have used that description if they were announcing shuttering their only late-stage program (AXAL). Hopefully, a deal is announced between now and then.
"Advaxis, Inc. (ADXS), a late-stage biotechnology company focused on..."
The reason for the terrible terms of this last offering had nothing to do with Berlin. It was a result of four years of O'Connor blowing through investor capital recklessly without creating value, followed by a do-nothing interim CEO for a year, so naturally the market/investors are skeptical of the company's ability to create a return on investment so demanded a much steeper discount/warrants this go around to protect themselves from the value destruction past investors has realized.
In its business update in January 2017, the compnay said it was starting to look for a partner for AXAL.
He said AXAL would be shelved if the company didn't find a partner in a limited (but not specified) amount of time. That's good and bad. Good in that the program has not been shelved yet, indicating he is in negotiations. Bad in that he's been at the helm six months now and still not nailed down a partner. Six months seems to be stretching what is a "limited amount of time." The market wants clarity and direction on the matter. I hope they find a partner, because it would be a waste shelving your only late stage candidate that the company has spent years to develop and the majority of our investor capital on.
Still in, hard to believe the market is valuing us at cash value and nothing more. Past management mistakes and inneficient use of investor capital is the reason I think. Very disappointing. I would rather see a sale to Amgem now even as low as $5/$300m net of cash rather than kicking the can down the road further since the market is punishing us with terrible terms of capital raising because of past mistakes. I wish the full extent of karma on Dan O'Connor. I'll just leave it at that.
I believe their policy is to only respond to shareholders.
"I think Ken is trying to get this into bankruptcy before the annual shareholders meeting."
Pure conjecture based only on a personal agenda, borderline slander.
It's dropped almost 40% this month alone (from $0.97 to $0.61). If news leaked of a patient death, that certainly would be a reason for sudden drop. And they wouldn't have to publicly disclose the patient death, only disclose it to the FDA. Then it's only a matter of time before the FDA puts the hold on, which would trigger a 3-day public disclosure by ADXS. I hope that's not what is happening, but the continuing collapse of the stock, silence by the company and no deal on either AXAL or HOT doesn't paint an optimistic picture.
Something doesn't seem right. It's unbelievable how much it has kept dropping without a word from the company. I wonder if material, negative news leaked like a clinical hold on the NEO trial. We'll see, they only have a matter of days to disclose it if it's something material.
Very interesting, new marketing by Amgen in a wesbite called amgenscience.com. Under the Shape of Drugs to Come section, Amgens describes how their future drug development rest on 13 areas of focus, one being Listeria-Based Immunotherapy in which it describes the unique potential of LLM, the partnership with Advaxis and notes, "Listeria-based immunotherapy is still an investigational modality, but encouraging results have been observed in early-stage clinical studies."
The science and promise of Advaxis' LLM platform has never been a problem and shown promising results. Unfortunately, we are where we are today because Dan O'Connor had no experience or business being a CEO and blew through more than $200 million in less than four years on misguided strategies while he spent a considerable amount of his time on strategizing on how to take as much shareholder assets for himself through less than ethical means not tied to performance. I think Ken is doing as good a job he can given the mess he inherited. He's cut the unsustainable cash burn and reprioritized the clinical program. Hopefully, he's getting an AXAL partner. I am also interested to see who partners for HOT. Folks have said they are trying to partner constructs individually, but in reality I could see one entity partnering for the entire HOT platform like Amgen did for NEO. In fact, I wouldn't be suprised if Amgen steps up and partners for HOT. Just reading the Amgen website about LLM and the Advaxis NEO partnershiup, Amgen sees this pact as one of the handful of platforms that will represent the future of the company, so they may not want anyone else to have HOT.
https://www.amgenscience.com/features/the-shape-of-drugs-to-come/
James, thanks for sharing, very interesting. ECTY is being bought for $24 a share, while just a little more than a year ago the stock traded down to $1.21 during a time when it announced a shift and refocus of its clinic priorities along with corporate layoffs. Sound familiar?
Dan also was the guy who thought that holding out and developing AXAL for Europe and U.S. internally as long as the company could would result in a bigger licensing deal later. That turned out to be dead wrong and a flawed strategy. At least Aduro got more than $100 million upfront for their first generation technology before it was ultimately shelved. On the other hand, Dan got nothing for AXAL with his BP (no skin in the game) collaborations and we spent well over $100 million developing AXAL alone, now it may be shelved. Hopefully, the company and our BOD and Berlin learned a lesson from the mismanagement of the past and realize they need to strike a deal now with HOT instead of the mentality of "if we wait until such and such then we'll get a larger deal later" all while shareholders foot the bill and value erodes while management pays itself more bonuses and comp increases for kicking the can down the road and diluting shareholders more.
Agreed, as I recall he indicated if the company did not secure a partner in a certain amount of time the trial would be wound down and he would provide update, but no mention of a specific timeline. The fact it hasn't been wound down yet may mean a negotiation is in motion.
Did J&J terminate its $1+ billion deal with ADRO's inferior LLM platform as the final step in inking a deal with ADXS on HOT? Time will tell.
Agree James. Also, the source of the post of the so called conversation with the company has historically been loose with facts and made subjective assertions without much basis (i.e., my friend at the big firm said such and such...). And remember not long ago, he was saying he thought ADXS could sell AXAL for $1 billion as I recall, whereas now he has changed his tune to saying he thought all along the AXAL cervical trial was too costly and would take too long and should be scrapped.
But one of those companies (ADXS) who folks have speculated has already decided to terminate its late stage clinical program called itself today in no uncertain terms a "late-stage biotechnology company".
Notice in the press release, the first sentence in the "About Advaxis" section reads:
"Advaxis, Inc. is a late-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of proprietary Lm-based antigen delivery products."
Just my opinion, but this is encouraging. If ADXS had decided to shut down AXAL because they could not find a partner, they would have likely removed the reference to "late-stage biotechnology company" at this point to condition the market that AXAL is history and the company reverts back to an early-stage company. But they continue to refer to the company as late-sage and their latest presentation refers to their seeking an AXAL partner. I think there is a good chance we will hear of some development by the time Berlin speaks at the conference. One way or another, he will be forced to address it, and my bet is at the time of the earnings release he was in negotiation so didn't have anything to say hence canceled the conference call...fast forward to October 1, he is ready to speak.
Let's hope that this is prelude to Berlin inking a monetary deal on HOT and "any" deal on AXAL so we can get back to the $8 to $10 range we were at before it became clear O'Connor had no viable direction or strategy and was recklessly depleting cash.
Hopefully it won't happen and the material event disclosed is a partnership.
Agreed, I would think they would have to announce a decision to shut down AXAL within the three day required window (or whatever it is for disclosing a material event). I can't think of many events that are more "material" than shutting down a trial we've pumped tens of millions into already whose closure essentially changes Advaxis overnight from being a late stage Phase 3 company to an early stage company.
I remain hopeful a deal is in the works. If it weren't, Berlin likely would have made the shutdown announcement at the time of the earnings release. The current corporate presentation dated shortly before the earnings announces says the company is actively seeking a partnership on AXAL.
Get it done Berlin and let's get back to the minimum fair value for most Phase 3 companies (around $300 million +).
Blue, I agree with you that the reason Berlin didn't have the conference call is that an AXAL deal is likely in the works and there really wasn't anything he could say on a call without raising speculation. I don't think it makes sense to shut down our late stage Phase 3 trial, which is by far our most advanced construct. Berlin likely evaluated the company's business strategy and thought it wasn't smart for ADXS to carry the AXAL trials by ourselves for a construct that is a first generation while we are now focused on second generation. Like many of us said early on, O'Connor showed lacked of intelligence by ploughing forward full force alone on AXAL without seeking a monetary partner like Aduro did with JNJ under the misguided strategy of carry it as far alone as possible in order to get a bigger monetary deal on the back end (which has been proven flat out wrong). His mentality was it didn't matter because he was using other people's (our) money to fund it, while lining his own pockets on the way all while executing a strategy that was destined to destroy value. I think Berlin is making the right moves to turn around the company.
Is that a fact CVI controls it and will not let it move up? Since you seem to know it all, curious why you did not sell at $30.
Hovacre, hope you are right and that Berlin steps up and delivers a material deal development soon.
Of course, these positions could simply be replacement positions if folks are resigning because the company is struggling.
Also, hiring itself means nothing. I remember when O'Connor went on his drunken hiring binge and whenever someone would raise the question whether he was ramping up staff too prematurely, the common response was generally "You don't ramp up headcount like he is unless something is in the works, likely a big deal on the Europe front." Well, in hindsight, we know he had nothing on the deal front and was simply hiring because he had money to burn with no strategic plan or goal. Bad Management 101
From a contrarian perspective, the sentiment couldn't get any worse, so may be a time to buy...depends on what Berlin delivers on the deal front. The company is trading at cash value so the maker is literally valuing our platform at $0 (despite a deal valued at $500m with Amgen). Just one monetary deal will will be a shot of confidence that management is finally in the right direction and should take us back to the $300m valuation arena where we should be at this point at a minimum.
Right, Berlin put his money where his mouth is and made an open market purchase of the stock (something O'Connor never did in four years) only to turn around and purposely crush the stock more so that he would loose money.
Dan O'Connor was a liar and a crook and should be in jail for lining his pockets at the expense of investors and recklessly blowing through more than $200m in four years leaving nothing to show for it. And Sid Ratsky takes some of the blame for waiting to remove O'Connor until the damage was done and it was too late. Berlin inherited a mess but he's making the right moves to turn around the company so it's not over yet (despite this message board that sounds like an obituary).
If ADXS strikes a deal on AXAL, it should mark the turnaround back to a valuation of at least $300 million (generally the minimum Phase III companies are valued).
Also, it is possible that this offering was a requirement of (whichever) Big Pharma before they sign a deal with ADXS on HOT or AXAL. They may have a statutory bylaw preventing them from doing monetary deals with entities that from an audit perspective have questions related to their going concern (i.e., ADXS was down to less than a year's worth of cash on hand).
I believe, given that ADXS publicly stated in its August 31 presentation that the company is in discussions with multiple parties for potential deals on HOT and AXAL coupled with the fact that now Roni submitted the Form publicly announcing he purchased shares in this offering, that the company is free to finalize the signing and announcement of a deal at anytime now forward.
Brilliant thought, so ADXS directors and executives recently purchased shares on the open market with their own money (something con man Dan O'Connor never did but instead took as many free shares as possible through less than ethical means) did so as part of an effort to bankrupt the company which would render their recent investment worthless. Please share more of your theories.
Fair point in looking at the purchase from the negative angle (i.e. that he bought because no deal was in contract or pending at the time of the purchase) one could also view it from the perspective that he believes beyond the blackout period of securities insider trading restrictions he believes there are material events on the horizon that will result is a stock price higher than the purchase price of the offering in which he participated. Just an alternative view to your negative interpretation of why he invested more into the company. His action was not a free share grant typical of the way O'Connor took from the company.
Thanks for sharing. More insider purchases, certainly a good think when a Director puts his own money on the line. He is an insider and knows the deals ADXS is currently in discussions on and he bought more.
I agree the stock can recover as the platform still looks very promising. However, the former mismanagement of the company and burnt market trust has cost us dearly and resulted in the last two offerings at very attractive terms, diluting our ownership by 50% so to get back to a fair valuation it means the stock price is half of what it would have been.
It's just sickening how much value this company has lost. The market is valuing ADXS' business at zero because it's trading at cash value now.
Yes, but all the money wasted and misguided strategy on AXAL was under the leadership of O'Connor extended through Lombardo. Berlin is trying to turn around the company after five years of mismanagement. What they are doing now is in the right direction. The problem is the Board waited too late to stop O'Connor. That falls on Sidrstsky. I would say to new investors Berlin is a real CEO and the platform still holds great promise if we can earn back the investor trust O'Connor burnt through incompetence and unethical self serving management of the company.