Ok going to do my best here at putting this all together for you but it is still early here. First we need to take a look back to Feb as this whats starts the whole issues on why we are where we are today.
[color=red]"on February 14, 2020, Inovio's CEO announced on national news that the Company had developed a COVID-19 vaccine "in a matter of about three hours" and re-affirmed this statement two weeks later in a well-publicized meeting with President Trump. As a result, Inovio's stock price more than quadrupled. However, contrary to these claims, on March 9, 2020, Citron Research exposed Invoio's misstatements, calling for an SEC investigation into Inovio's "dangerous claim that they designed a [COVID-19] vaccine in 3 hours." Consequently, Inovio admitted the Company had not developed a COVID-19 vaccine but rather a "vaccine construct."[/color][color=red][/color]
This whole issue is what sets the stage and is important to understand. So first question.
1. Why is Inovio last to come to the dinner on the vaccine development? Technically Inovio was not the last to come to the dinner table, they were one of the first. The technology used to develop the vaccine is the same technology that they used to develop INO-4700 for Mers Covid. which has seen great success. In Kims defense and I am sure in his thought process Inovio did create the vaccine on a simulated model he just happened to have poor choice in wording when conveying the message. Due to this miswording, Short seller Andrew Left and Citron now had an easy target to substantially add large amounts of money to their portfolio. The ensuing lawsuits now placed the seed of doubt that needed to be overcome and created delays in funding and approvals. This could also be why the conservative approach was adopted moving forward.
2. Why has there been no formal release of the Phase 1 data?
I believe that this is due to the pandemic as a whole. The whole process has been slowed and what used to take 30 days to achieve is now taking months. I think that this is also taking an extended period of time due to the fact that they wanted to have a great enough time frame to examine the initial volunteers for T-cell response and side effects several months after the vaccine was administered. If you look back through the peer review of p1 for INO 4700 the information was derived over a several month time period. Personally I also think that there is more going on in the background on a positive note that we will become aware of in the next couple of months, could even mean fast tracking through P2/P3 with a smaller amount of volunteers needed to gain FDA approval. It has already been stated that by government officials that 30,000 volunteers may not be needed if the efficacy results are validated with only several hundred.
3. Why is the FDA ignoring Inovio and not letting them proceed with P2/P3 testing?
I think we can revert back to the answer to the previous question on this. I dont think that the FDA is ignoring Inovio, I think that there is something more positive in the works that could be causing the extended delay. This could also be due to everything else that is currently going on in the world and this could also be getting held up due to the current nature of politics and the fact that this is an election year.
3. why did the "warp speed" government program not include Inovio
Inovio is currently part of OWS as stated in the PR that was released regarding the $71 mil that was provided through DOD. Kim has even stated that INO was part of OWS in all of his last 3 conferences that he has joined in the last week.
Why are analysts mostly bearish on Inovio
I think this has to do with the nature of the business. Most analysist have some sort of financial gain that can be derived from a position that they hold on a given equity. This also could be due to the current state of volatility. It also does not help that due to the past Lawsuits the company has derived a conservative approach to how information will be released. This in return has a negative perception on what is really happening.
5. Why are the insiders mostly selling INO stock for the past year, like the CEO and CFO for example?
Looking through the insider trading there does not appear to be as large of an issue as what is perceived. Corporate execs, in alot of cases, are also financially compensated with shares of the company that they work for so some sort of insider activity is to be expected. Here are the numbers for 6 months of insider trading. 4.51 mil shares are currently being held by insiders. In the last 6 months 131,829 shares have been purchased and 223,588 shares have been sold. This only results in a -2% change in the insiders position. If I remember right part of the shares that were accounted for in the sell category were not actually sold but were transferred from the original holder to a member of that persons family.
finally as for the final question the 40 volunteers only accounts for the P1 trial, we have yet to see the numbers as pertaining to P2/P3.
Hope this clears some things up. Like I said its still early here.
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