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$MGT New MGTPlay online skilled wagering goes live beginning of January 2014. On CC, CEO said NJ CSIE internet gambling license & partnering agreement is expected in 1st quarter 2014.
FOMC: caught the vertical pop DUST $43.50 to $45.52
REGI to acquire SYNM in deal with conditions attached, subject to shareholder approval. If it works out as planned, this equates to $3.90 per share, well above closing share price of $2.46 as of Tuesday December 17.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/renewable-energy-group-inc-agrees-212700853.html
The 613K warrants owned by Iroquois were given a one-time window to redeem for shares at a discount. However, it is a small percent of sharecount and only about 4-5 days equivalent trading volume. If you are in MGT for next year's catalysts, this is probably a good time to accumulate. If you are a daytrader, it's not going to jump until news. I don't see this issue in the medium term as a negative, just a 2 week period of dead money. Although MGT's PR didn't explain WHY they needed to clear out warrants, I suspect it had something to do with MGT's Avcom acquisition executed on November 27, whereby Avcom was purchased with about 491,000 restricted MGT shares. The owners of Avcom may have made clearing out old MGT warrants a precondition to their getting on-board, who knows.
Article in igamingbusiness on p2m deal with MGT. Nice exposure.
$IMUC New SeekingAlpha highlights risk/reward:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1870981-immunocellular-is-a-high-risk-high-reward-biopharma
Consensus that gold will go up on Iran deal.
Iran will be able to access US dollars, which will only be temporary, for 6 months, and there is a high chance that a further deal will fall through. This means Iran will quickly step in to convert any acquired US dollars into a form that cannot be locked back up -- that is, by purchasing gold. Short term that is bullish for gold. Longer term, if deals fall through and more sanctions are implemented, Iran will trade that gold for imports, which has the reverse effect. Six months is a long ways off.
Since only physical gold or cash can be transacted through Singapore, this will undermine the influence of derivatives.
In terms of predicting the direction of short term markets, note that silver net short positions are now within spitting distance of the lowest numbers seen. Gold net short positions are down a lot, too.
http://bit.ly/IbUKFg
Stock Talk Live is down...Knock knock, Anyone home?
$MGT - going to pop +20% today on news of acquisition of biz that designs slot machines. Strong high volume reversal on news late day yesterday.
Multiple catalysts - applied for NJ casino enterprise license, owns other social gambling companies (sports wagering), and markman hearing for lawsuit against Cesears, MGM, and slot machine manufacturers next spring.
News:
MGT Capital Investments, Inc. (NYSE MKT: MGT) has agreed to acquire Avcom, Inc., a New York City based gaming studio focused on building social casino games for mobile devices under the brand Mobile Vegas. Avcom brings a proprietary software platform for secure gaming, mobile development, and sophisticated analytics, as well as expertise in the areas of digital marketing and real money gaming. Avcom also brings over 650,000 slot machine players from its existing instant win game offerings.
Four years. Read Jason's article, "A Fresh Dose of Reality for InVivo" on Seeking Alpha.
The start of the FIRST patient enrollment was pushed back 4 to 7 months. The enrollments are now required to be staggered, one patient is enrolled and followed for 90 days, then FDA reviews that patient, then FDA will approve the next patient to be enrolled in sequence, etc. Complete enrollment of 5 patients is now anticipated to require 21 months, versus all within fall of 2013. Then all of the patients, including the last one, must be followed for about 2 years after surgery. Another surprise is that FDA won't let the device be marketed to 4,000 patients after the preliminary 5-patient trial, as it is now forecasted that FDA will require an expanded PMA trial. Whether or not the expanded PMA trial is allowed to charge and recover limited costs per scaffold implant, it could not possibly result in revenue offsets of more than 2 to 4 million dollars over the life of the 2 year PMA study. When you add the timeline to submit the PMA study to FDA, then FDA review and approval, the scaffold product will not be commercialized until late 2019 or 2020. That, my friend, is a 4 year pushback from what Frank Reynolds had projected before his resignation, which was commercialization in 2015.
Don't rush to judgement based on one factoid alone and the heady confidence that comes with being up on paper by 100 percent. Been there done that. I was up 102 percent on my basis back in late July. It went to below basis when the CEO resigned and I thought that was good news that corporate governance was preparing them for uplisting. However, I ended up selling down 52 percent because a surprise happened on day two of the new CEO's employment - they announced a 4 year pushback of the timeline for commercialization of the biopolymer scaffold, their first flagship product.
At this point, we have the CEO resigning due to mysterious "health reasons", followed by a 4 year pushback of the timeline to become profitable, which affects further dilution down the road, followed by an abrupt termination of the CFO with no explanation whatsoever.
All signs point to something very wrong happened at this company. We don't know exactly what it is, so I'm not gambling with my money that it was ONLY the ex-CEO misleading investors on the timeline and the new CFO buying shares before an investor conference. Those are but two of the numerous possibilities here. Observing the action through my binoculars from a distance, I see two rats leaping into the water one after another, and a gross misleading or underestimate of the scaffold product timeline. In all likelihood there are still more shoes to drop, IMO.
For one thing, the timeline of the remaining pipeline products is surely to be pushed back, and that alone will hammer the stock down further, and that news could come today, tomorrow, next week, or in 2 weeks.
This is interesting. So why did Frank Reynolds take over as CFO instead of Sean Moran after Sean's brief stint?
Bigmouth shorts saying $1. Strangely, this time I believe them.
In addition, they are saying it's worth "a lot less", which is the type of thing they say when they know of further impending bad news that the retail market is not privy too. Just staying away right now. Casino game here.
How's the party guys?
Another shoe ready to drop, hydrogel pushback in timeline for FDA submission. It's coming because the CEO said he was preparing to issue revised pipeline projections as soon as he finishes reviewing status. Watching ...
Here is the other scoop, since you asked. Reynolds sued U of Penn and Wharton, two separate entities, for confering upon him a Masters in Engineering designated as issued from U of Penn, when Reynolds claims he was promised he would get a degree that he could claim he was a Wharton graduate (which is more prestigious as a top business school).
Reynolds lost in court. It was determined that the main evidence that Reynolds relied upon to press his case was a PowerPoint presentation he claimed was created by the Universities that contained the Wharton insignia in addition to U of Penn insignia. In reality, the defense (the Universities) examined the evidence using computer forensics and clearly determined that (1) at the time of his enrollment when Reynolds claimed he was given the powerpoint the particular insignia revision had not been created yet (that replica was first created a couple years later) and secondly, the file creation date indicated the file had been edited and altered and was not the original, and thirdly, that the original computer on which the file was stored Frank conveniently claimed was destroyed in a fire. The judge examined the evidence and determined it was indeed altered. So Frank asked to have HIS OWN EVIDENCE supporting his lawsuit excluded from the the case evidence.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gpo.gov%2Ffdsys%2Fpkg%2FUSCOURTS-paed-2_06-cv-01237%2Fpdf%2FUSCOURTS-paed-2_06-cv-01237-6.pdf&ei=FpQeUqnJB7K14AOa8oGYCw&usg=AFQjCNHTkc8o6IarSeXnGJK6csyl-ltRgA
So clearly we have a guy who doesn't mind lying ... with the balls to lie directly to the judge in order to bully his way into a judgement for him to win money.
Read some of the other case records on that entire file -- Frank tried to misrepresent what University Personnel were telling him in court, too, which resulted in several University officials determining that he was disingenuous and manipulative.
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Second piece of evidence for Frank lying to the public: Frank claimed in several magazine articles he was paralyzed in 1992 from a CAR ACCIDENT and had to learn to walk again through rehabilitation. In reality, newspapers reported at the time frank was injured unloading a truck. There are corrections on the web if you want the references you can google:
"Spine-fusion surgery backfiring for many some are suing, saying the procedure only increased their pain". This links to contradictory articles in the Philly Inquirer where unloading a truck is mentioned, versus promotional claims reported in the Boston Globe about a car accident paralysis. He never actually suffered paralysis, only peripheral nerve damage.
The point however, is Frank is quite comfortable making up stories to suit his objectives in front of the public.
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Now with that backdrop, consider that Frank Reynolds is the ONLY guy to have presented to the world the supposed second and third study results -- you cannot find journal citations anywhere in past or present InVivo website documentation or presentations. However, he lifted and presented charts and graphs from these supposed additional second and third monkey studies in various talks. He even gave copies to Jason Napodano which were printed in Seeking Alpha. And what are the chances that Frank edited those data graphs? Makes you wonder.
Quote from the individual poster I mentioned (from this message board a couple years ago):
Regarding InVivo’s preclinical work, on one hand, the CEO is always going around making bold statements claiming that their research findings so far have been uniformly positive (i.e., like you stated "they have not had mixed results"). On the other hand, what the CEO is not telling investors is that InVivo run into major problems in 2009 with the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) National Primate Center which they had contracted to conduct their preclinical SCI work in monkeys. This prestigious research center is one of eight National Primate Research Centers in the United States
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/12/28/story6.html
http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2009/09/22/onprc-kills-more-monkeys.aspx
Specifically, InVivo’s pre-clinical study was stopped after the first seven monkeys that had underwent spinal-severing surgery developed life threatening complications as a result and four of them had to be euthanized within days.
InVivo subsequently sued OHSU for not providing the monkeys with proper post-surgical care, which they say caused the routine bladder problems to become more serious issues and charged OHSU with halting the experiment and euthanizing the animals against the company's wishes.
OHSU countered that all monkeys received appropriate around-the-clock care after surgery and that it was InVivo who called a halt to the surgeries. Here is a quote from Jim Newman, the OHSU spokesperson at the time: "The day after surgeries began, we noticed that the surgery results were more severe than the company had predicted. We informed InVivo of these problems, and they voluntarily stopped the research."
As is often the case in unfortunate situations like this, the specific details of what exactly did go wrong remain a matter of dispute between the research institution and the company and both parties eventually reached an out-of-court settlement.
However, in light of this, it should make every investor wonder how the CEO rightfully can continue to say things like “We have treated over 40 monkeys and all of them – each one – is up and running in about 3 weeks” (this quote is from one of his recent TV road show appearances).
Plaintiff: InVivo Therapeutics Corp.
Defendant: Oregon Health & Science University
Case Number: 1:2009cv11458 Filed: September 1, 2009
Court: Massachusetts District Court Office: Boston Office County: Middlesex
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/1:2009cv11458/124146/
The suggestion that the researchers at OHSU were simply incapable to properly carry out the animal experiments that they had been contracted to conduct is highly doubtful IMO. Most people would find it difficult to accept that a research institution of OHSU’s caliber would consent to run pre-clinical trials for a company that is trying to get FDA approval, if they did not think they had the proper infrastructure in place (i.e., proper housing and personnel for the care of animals, etc.) or their scientific research experts were not able to adequately carry out the required surgical procedures including the proper aftercare. These important issues are all addressed in the routine vetting procedures prior to signing a research contract - you do not find out about these kinds of problems while you are trying to run the actual experiments.
I have reviewed all of the US Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/) Inspection Report data pertaining to OHSU over the time period that the InVivo monkey trial was run there. These reports clearly demonstrate that the Oregon National Primate Research Center received a clean bill of health and the responsible USDA investigators did not find any of the kinds of issues that InVivo alleged may have contributed to the unfortunate study outcomes.
In the end, I believe that these government reports are accurate. It looks like we disagree on what may have happened at OHSU.
FWIW, I have also done the same type of search (http://www.aphis.usda.gov/) for the year 2008 (i.e., to check more in-depth into the issues surrounding the PETA complaint). The Inspector Reports over that time period support what you cited from your first link and that OHSU was given a warning letter by the agency. However, the article written by Jeff Akst in its original version (available here: http://classic.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55985/) also continues to say:
“That government warning "was a very rare occurrence" at the school, Newman told The Boston Globe. "When we received it, we went through our records, which go back a decade, and we could not find another instance of receiving a warning."
Thus, the 2008 problem at the OHSU animal research center that you highlight in your reply was clearly an exception. I would think that after receiving a government warning letter, the key decision makers at the university at that time were especially motivated to do everything to make sure that those things were not going to happen again. A review of the official USDA Inspector Reports supports my assertion.
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Another post about the lack of ability to find the published results of the second and third studies (full scientific papers):
Other than information about InVivo's first monkey trial, where can I find the data (i.e., scientific publications) from the 2nd or 3rd monkey studies that would support the company's (and your) assertion that the success in primates has been replicated?
InVivo’s first monkey trial (i.e., the study that won the prestigious APPLE award from the American Spinal Cord Association in 2011) involved a total of 4 African green monkeys with one serving as experimental control, another one receiving a scaffold-only implant, and the remaining two animals receiving the scaffold with stem cells. It’s a great science project but obviously very limited in its scope.
As an investor in this company, I want to be able to independently substantiate the repeated comments made by the CEO Mr. Reynolds suggesting that all of their monkeys “where up and running in about 3 weeks.” As such, I have been waiting for a long time to see what InVivo’s follow-up monkey studies with larger sample sizes actually would be able to demonstrate. Last November at the Piper Jaffray’s Healthcare Conference Mr. Reynolds stated that these studies employed improved assessment methods (including wireless EMG systems) and that the results were “fantastic.” He also stated during the call that “We are just about to publish that second study.” Well, unfortunately, that was over 6 months ago and he has been selling stock in the order of 1.9 million dollars since that time.
FYI, for some time now, I have closely followed the published work coming out of V. Reggie Edgerton’s lab at UCLA since Mr Reynolds often alludes to him and Dr. Edgerton serves on InVivo’s scientific advisory board. According to a quick glance at Pubmed just now (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=%22Edgerton%20VR%22[Author]), since November 2011 Dr. Edgerton’s lab has published 12 refereed papers. Of these, two publications address a nonhuman primate model of SCI with one of them being a review article and the other an original study that involved 24 rhesus macaques that underwent C7 spinal cord at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis. Here are the citations:
Nout YS, Rosenzweig ES, Brock JH, Strand SC, Moseanko R, Hawbecker S, Zdunowski S, Nielson JL, Roy RR, Courtine G, Ferguson AR, Edgerton VR, Beattie MS, Bresnahan JC, Tuszynski MH. Animal models of neurologic disorders: a nonhuman primate model of spinal cord injury. Neurotherapeutics. 2012 Apr;9(2):380-92.
Nout YS, Ferguson AR, Strand SC, Moseanko R, Hawbecker S, Zdunowski S, Nielson JL, Roy RR, Zhong H, Rosenzweig ES, Brock JH, Courtine G, Edgerton VR, Tuszynski MH, Beattie MS, Bresnahan JC. Methods for Functional Assessment After C7 Spinal Cord Hemisection in the Rhesus Monkey. Neurorehabil Neural Repair. 2012 Feb 13. [Epub ahead of print]
I have been unable to connect any of this research work out of Edgerton’s lab to InVivo. Interestingly, though, the authors of the recent Neurorehabil Neural Repair paper state that their study design included an examination of the efficacy of non-specified “experimental therapeutics.” However, they do not report any results in their current publication but simply state that this aspect of their work is still the subject of a continuing study.
If you can direct me to a source that allows me to independently review the definite results of InVivo's more recent monkey studies, I would appreciate it. Crede sed proba is not a bad piece of investment advice, especially for penny stocks.
All opinions are welcome here when they are backed up with rational explanations for one's position and not just crazy baseless predictions (going to the moon or going to zero, for example).
Personally, I just wanted to ask Joe what his investing horizon was and secondly, wish to give other investors a chance to fully understand my take on the risks in this stock since I have followed it for a long time and don't want to see anyone get burned. Another poster you should read on this board is the author "Veni Vidi Vici" who has a couple posts 2 weeks ago on this board. He is aware of some events involving Frank and InVivo from several years back that would open up your eyes. Always keep an open mind when investing it will protect you in the long run. Good luck.
I take it by "watch developments with first patient" you don't mean that you are holding from now until then, about 10 months longer than most of your scalps or 1-3 day swings. Just curious is all.
Yeah, I'll be "watching" too, but not with money in the game until something happens, since all of our great short term catalysts just evaporated into thin air -- no uplist in the next couple months with share price so low, no trials start for 6 to 8 months, FDA hydrogel application date in limbo now that schedules are being "re-evaluated" according to CEO and will undoubtedly get pushed back into 2014, and lastly, the preliminary results of the first patient would be 3 months after patient enrollment, which takes us to around May of next year.
Until those events get closer, there are zero catalysts to value the stock any higher than it is, but meanwhile there are other shoes that could drop any time now, like you were saying a couple days ago, the timeline extension for hydrogel bombshell PR which is coming any day now.
More importantly, there is a distinct possibility, not to be discounted, that we could see an investigation into CEO intentionally misleading investors and shareholders on schedule, possible overt and intentional editing and manipulation of videos and study results -- maybe even outright fabrication of videos, since ex-CEO was in a court battle with U of Penn and Wharton in 2008-2010 over the school name he could use on his master's degree, and the court had evidence that Frank literally fabricated and backdated a powerpoint which supposedly was promotional promises from the university. Those things in combination with Frank's exaggeration over how many monkeys improved under what conditions leads me to believe some type of official investigation could be forthcoming if shorts put out a highly detailed analysis of frank's promotional materials. That would be bad, REAL BAD for the stock price, even with him gone, as the adverse publicity might make FDA take a step back and reconsider scaffold tests.
What's your exit price target? 5 cents above today's close?
Just curious.
I stepped down as I won't be around. IMO dead money for many months to come based on the timeline extension on scaffold and much longer followup study before commercialization. Furthermore, the hydrogel timeline schedule is under review at this moment according to the latest PR from the new CEO, and that will be another shoe that drops when hydrogel is pushed back from original September schedule.
I am also afraid of legal problems related to ex-CEO - could be sued for false statements on Investor Presentation or a few other things. Whether any suit progresses doesn't matter, but it will hurt the stock nonetheless with respect to investor sentiment.
If you decide to hold, good luck to you, but at this point there could be another hit piece any day on the monkey trials having been falsified, or a PR which pushes back all of their other product timelines by months to years, any of which will shave another $0.50 or 33 percent from the share price.
Good luck to folks who are long, short, or on the sidelines.
Happy Frank won't be around to mislead us on timelines but mad about 6 month delay in patient trials. So this is turning out to be more of a test of patience that I originally thought when I bought last spring.
I am holding because of the enormous potential that exists for curing or partially reversing paralysis using some combination of stem cells and other adjunctive therapies combined with use of the biopolymer scaffold. This may take a long time to perfect WHICH combination actually creates the best outcome, but on the other hand, it might be a VERY SOON SOMEDAY if the right combination is found near the beginning phases of testing.
Last April I bought NVIV, which seems like eons ago, but in the lifecycle of biotech product development is only a short chapter. I bought because FDA reviewed and finally approved NVIV's biopolymer scaffold as a HUD to allow use in preliminary patient implants. The general consensus is that there are several stem cell lines that have shown some promise, but the techniques will have to be tested and refined to be optimally successful.
It appears plausible, based on animal testing, that the biopolymer matrix of the scaffold presents a healthy medium to allow spinal nerve regeneration while reducing or eliminating some of the more serious negative metabolic complications triggered by the body's response to injury that would normally kill off stem cells and cause scarring and prevent nerve regeneration. The fact that even short term progress was seen in a few monkey and rodent studies with the scaffold, and the fact that other stem cell therapies have independently been tested and shown significant promise in other tissue regrowth applications, means that FDA is going to have to allow the development of this science using the best and safest available technology as a starting point (i.e., InVivo's scaffold which is biodegradable). This is really the best way to give acute SCI paralysis victims some chance of having a recovery - really ANY recovery - that is better than the normal outcome which would be permanent paralysis. That is why I am invested, because the technology IS being moved ahead with the upcoming patient trials. And secondly, I do not feel NVIV is an all-eggs-in-basked company because the methyl prednisolone hydrogel, which they also hold a patent on, is a much broader application and based on a drug already used for many applications.
I was only referring to the chart by itself. Oversold in the sense that unless something new happens, the chart shows the stock is at lows considered very attractive that would be bought within a short time (up to a few days) based on past performance.
That being said, it could take a couple of days until buyers feel that things have stabilized enough and the newness of panic has worn off to venture a return to risk appetite in the stock. However, further good news of any sort would certainly bring upside, but also further bad news some limited downside, although any more downside would clearly be an ultra-strong buy that should bounce within a week, since a one year delay in the completion of initial patient trials should not price the stock as if it is ready for bankruptcy.
Technically this is way, way oversold. Also, if only one of the various events is triggered, we are off to the races being this oversold. Such news could be corporate governance material changes (such as appointing new audit team members - tells us uplisting is getting closer), actual uplisting itself (need I say more?), announcement of the enrollment of the first scaffold patient (probably a game changer there), and announcement of a half-decent schedule for hydrogel (will make a small difference but not big difference until FDA application is filed).
The company is managed by a new CEO, that is good news.
The old CEO was doing improper marketing but that doesn't make their business model a fraud. Seriously.
Joe Natural quote "The entire management team along with IR turned out to be a huge fraud."
This newsrelease indicates NVIV is solid in their scaffold implant plans. This will be one of the highest flying stocks from this juncture in the coming 9 months, mark my words.
Dip buying continues on volume. Aegis reaffirms $7 target, says the delay is not significant pushed to first quarter 2014 from last quarter 2013. Either case, no one believed the old CEO timelines, while going forwards this new CEO has an excellent reputation for delivering what he states.
Dip buyers 160000 shares. PPS below preHUD approval.
Staggered enrollment is good for preliminary results news on scaffold trials within 90 days of each patient enrollment. This way there will be a constant newstream throughout the year on how each single trial is progressing. News that there were no harmful complications of surgery in and of itself will be positive as the trial is designed only for safety and not efficacy (no stem cells to be used at first as far as I can tell). Furthermore, ANY notable improvement - bladder function, sensation or wiggling of toes, etc. - will be groundbreaking news because the expectation is that all patients who are fully paralyzed before surgery will remain fully paralyzed for life.
The submission to FDA of each single trial preliminary result will in and of itself be considered material news and will have to be reported in an 8K.
What that means is that by end of 1Q 2014 NVIV will have preliminary results released on the first ever scaffold implant testing in a human being, which is groundbreaking news. Only about one quarter behind the original preliminary results timeline.
The difference of course is that trials will take longer. But the upside to that is there will be a constant stream of preliminary news every 3 to 5 months as the trials progress, material news which is great for the market sentiment.
In the final analysis, Jason Napodano thinks that product commercialization will probably be about 5-6 years out, using this approach. However, the benefits are that the approach can be adjusted along the way based on what is learned from each patient, and the results will provide the market with good tracking information and hopefully lots of positive news on the safety to support positive sentiment with a stream of news releases.
Keeping a balanced perspective, what biotech product DOESN'T require a 5 year period until commercialization? ONVO, one of the most revolutionary biotech product developers, on a par with NVIV for revolutionary technology, is among the highest sentiment biotech stocks of all right now, and it is well understood by all investors that their product is AT LEAST 10 YEARS to commercialization, with great uncertainties. It is the promise of the technology for market dominance and tremendous value to meeting an unmet need that makes NVIV as well as ONVO great stocks to invest in at this time.
Nancy Zhang has decent credentials, too, not anonymous.
Also, note I just got off the phone with Jason Napodano in the last couple minutes before the bell. Jason said he had read the article written by Biotech Sage and that the pricing of the scaffold that the author had done was incorrect because he did not understand how HUD works.
Also, the poster on Yahoo claiming that shorts were re-entering the stock at $3.40 was probably wrong. There were two sells in the last hour of around 10,000 to 20,000 block size, but in the last 5 minutes of trading I saw a block of 45,000 shares on the bid on level 2, within 2 cents of the current share price, that nobody wanted to touch. A short would have sold into that in order to sell high.
In case you weren't around Friday, a Seeking Alpha hit piece came out early enough during trading hours, we got a full crash and then a nice little bounce. After the dip, the stock rose about 50 cents then settled down pretty stable for the last 2 hours.
Since the closing bell there have been over 110 comments on SeekingAlpha, and probably triple that on Yahoo. The consensus is 96 to 97 percent positive versus about 3 to 4 percent in agreement with Biotech Sage. So I think that kind of sets the tone for Monday's open, not expected to be too crazy...
I talked to IR Thursday pm - click previous post.
That means we could be due for a heckuva short squeeze when the company responds, nice find.
Also, between July 15 and July 31 open short interest went up to a half a million, which had been less than 1/5 of that level prior.
I did add another 15 percent to my position, and I am 100 percent convinced that NVIV is comprised of highly qualified leaders who will execute on their pipeline. Keep in mind this is a development stage biotech and to reap the rewards you have to wait until these developments happen. There is always considerable uncertainty of holding developmental biotechs - typically it can be anywhere between one week to the better half one year to see major milestones be announced, regardless of their initial projections. Meanwhile there will be sentiment improvement as the market perceives future events coming closer and closer, just like there was back with NVIV between May and July. Sentiment goes in cycles.
Unlikely to be lasting negativity from changing CEOs, as it was largely in-line with what investors appeared to desire, and secondly because shortsellers tried this one time before when the stock was at about $2.10 last winter, and they spun the fear of NVIV never getting HUD approval from the FDA. The stock dropped to $1.60 but only for a couple of days. Most importantly, NVIV DID deliver the goods and got full FDA approval for the biopolymer scaffold as a HUD/IDE, which is what the shorts tried to infer would never happen.
The start of patient trials is exactly the same dynamic - shorts want you to believe the whole company is going to fail based on poor execution and bad science, when in reality they have a top-notch, world class research team in charge, and have ALREADY been approved by FDA for the scaffold to be used in up to 4,000 patients per year, with the ability to charge money for each unit sold according to the cost of research and development and production. Uplisting will also happen, too, but only when the ducks are all aligned, but keep in mind they have already made some corrections since they announced their intent to uplist 3 months ago.
Too funny to imagine "grey sheets" given the top-rated and award winning management and BOD team with Mr. Astrue, Dr. Langer, and other top researchers. Grey sheets are reserved for chiscams of which this company has no similarity, that characterization is completely inappropriate and doesn't fool anyone.
If you scrape away all of today's events, from the admitted shortseller's negative so-called "research" article together with a well-coordinated shortselling shock and awe campaign run simultaneously, then all that is left in terms of REAL DEVELOPMENTS affecting the company over the last 30 days is (1) a corporate announcement that NVIV had to delay uplisting due to corporate governance issues (so what company doesn't have to make some minor changes to uplist and what company uplists in 60 days???), and (2), today's well-received news of the replacement of the joint CEO/CFO with two well-qualified individuals holding separate titles. Clearly, Frank was an overzealous CEO who was great as a founder and idea man to get things started, but over time many investors have grown weary with his style, and think it is now better for the company's future to let another person who is a very experienced biotech CEO manage product launch, clinical trials, and FDA coordination, as well as being responsible for making news releases and PR videos that are less of marketing material and more factual-based, in-line with what you would expect to see produced by a big board biotech.
We should have a nice opportunity for stink bids soon if anyone is just playing the bounce. This short piece was in preparation for a while but there will be some refutations out fairly soon.
Visionaries who are founders of companies are often the perfect "idea man", brilliant and able to create the spark that catalyses the startup of a revolutionary product, but as time goes on many of them do not fit the mold of a product manager, since their creativity and enthusiasm can get in the way of the boring details of just running the company with a dry focus on execution, coordination of plans and projections, and handling of commercial business deals including product launch. At later stages of company growth, the ideal "idea man" is better off passing the torch to an experienced industry CEO when the time comes.
The lifecycle of a revolutionary developmental stage biotech is very susceptible to this phenomenon. A brilliant researcher can be the brains or inspiration behind the company, but sooner or later the company needs someone with expert experience with the real world to coordinate and execute on product launches.
NVIV - may add on any big dip tommorrow but I will be watching Level 2 action to see if there is a volume spike. If no volume spike, I will likely just hold and sit tight as I have a full position and will only add at bargain prices.
OSIR - Watched that one uplist a week ago $10 to $26, but wasn't in it. Now I am waiting for a pullback retracement to the mid-teens ($15 - $17), but it hasn't gotten there yet. Need to let more of the excitment wear off first, I guess. All biotech charts behave somewhat different. GLTY.