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Or it could be that NWBO management is using this strategy to make us read too much into it and think that NWBO is going to have imminent, game changing good news.
If they were not so good at that technique of making investors think something could happen at any time, I would take the more positive interpretation of this.
I am not saying you're wrong in your prediction or even that Mr. Feuerstein is right.
I just think caution is in order.
I did notice but since the reputations and MO's of most big investors are well known, once we have the name, we'll basically know if Mr. Feuerstein is right or not.
Mr. Feuerstein is claiming to know the identity of the investor not merely the investor's intentions. The identity would presumably tell him the intentions.
Mr. Feuerstein's claim will be susceptible as I said, to proof at least once we see what the investor does and as said who the investor is will be quite revealing.
Exactly so, which is another reason why a reverse split would be a disaster for us. It would not mark the end of dilution but only a new beginning.
Well burying it in a PR is almost as bad but I get your point.
If Woodford were buying in, and NWBO is too dumb to say so, well, once again, wow!
If true, completion of Phase 1 rates a letter to shareholders even if they don't wanted to PR it.
You've done good work, but NWBO forcing us to closely read the website for minor changes in phraseology to get major news is lousy investor relations. For all we know it could be a typo!
30% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Unless, Ms. Powers can hurry up and deliver, we'd better take a deal now than keep bleeding out: otherwise the deal we get offered, if another even gets offered will be worse next time because we'll have a weaker bargaining position.
I am operating of course, on the reasonable assumption that news is not coming soon, since that is consistent with NWBO's track record on meeting benchmarks.
NWBO is so badly managed you're saying marijuana is a better investment?
Wow.
Another financing before news cannot not be dismissed because January 2017 is just an estimate for when we'll get Phase 3 news and that in turn is based upon the merely estimated conclusion time frame for the trial of November 2016.
So there is no margin for error here.
If NWBO is late on releasing Phase 3 news, by even a few weeks, they'll have to raise more funds at these low prices and probably with warrants.
And as before, people will interpret that financing however they like and because NWBO will not tell anything before they have to, we'll still not know if that is the 'last' toxic financing or not and we'll be having a variation of this same discussion all over again.
The Two Continent strategy only makes sense if you assume a hostile FDA, so it is more Ms. Powers who is making a tacit accusation by spending the extra money and division of effort, time and attention to operate in Europe simultaneously.
Personally, I do not know if FDA wants to destroy NWBO but it is well known that there is a revolving door between government service and private enterprise.
This makes FDA, like the Department of Defense, shall we say, more responsive to the big players in the private sector than the small upstarts.
The dominant enterprises in the pharmaceutical sector need to control disruptive technologies until they can adjust their business models. They have seen what happens periodically to dominant players in regular tech who get blindsided by disruptive technologies and do not want the same to befall them in biotech. Who would? I would not go so far as to say they want to permanent suppress disruptive technologies, since everyone gets cancer, even big pharma execs. and their families. But to slow walk the introduction? To gain control of the intellectual properties and roll them out in a more orderly, less disruptive way?
From Big Pharma's perspective this is even reasonable and it would only seem unreasonable to people who need treatment now, like patients who have GBM and cannot wait 5 or 10 years for DCVax L (or whatever it would be relabeled once in the hands of a Big Pharma company) to be introduced.
So how much this dynamic is going on is open to question.
As far as playing Europe off against the FDA, I also thought that Hospital Exemption in Germany was also going to prove important by bringing in revenue that would prevent NWBO from starving to death while finishing the trials and awaiting approval in Europe and maybe in the US.
More to the point it would have been proof that DCVax L worked and thanks to social media would have generated buzz that would have increased pressure on regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to act.
This great promise never materialized.
Why HE ended up doing nothing is hard to say:
Were the German Sickness Funds too stingy?
Was NWBO too greedy?
Did the German Sickness Funds decide DCVax L was not so effective after all?
Are there problems with manufacturing we have not been told about?
At the rate NWBO shares information with shareholders, we will probably not know for many more months.
Your points are well taken and initially it seemed by going to Europe as well as the U.S., Ms. Powers would be able to leverage the fact that countries with socialized medicine would have a different set of incentives when it comes to approving DCVax L.
Also socialized medicine countries do not always get access to the latest treatments as quickly which is why patients often travel from Canada and other countries to the United States when they have a life-threatening illness and need not just SOC but cutting edge care.
By having Europe, as an option, it seemed that Ms. Powers could prevent 'home cooking' in favor of Big Pharma by the FDA since she was not solely dependent upon FDA to commercialize DCVax L.
The idea here would be that by using her 'two continent strategy' Ms. Powers would be able to move at the pace of the fastest regulatory agency, rather than the slowest.
For whatever reason, that strategy has not worked and given that it unquestionably costs more to operate on two continents, so far we seem to be getting the higher costs, without the envisioned benefits.
Granted maybe without having Europe as an alternative, the FDA would have been even more aggressive about trying to destroy NWBO and would move beyond just letting it die from lack of funds as it seems to be doing now. I do not really know how honest or corrupt FDA is but assuming it is hostile, maybe having the other alternative did reduce its strong hostility.
Lotteries come in different sizes with very different odds of winning. Private Lotteries were popular in early America and had much better odds than the state-run lotteries we are most familiar with today. George Washington like lotteries.
For a fictional small lottery The Lottery by Shirley Jackson for an example of a small one you do not want to win.
So NWBO has in my mind, a chance of winning of tens to 1 against, not thousands or millions to one against like the example you gave.
As a result: I will keep this Lotto ticket since though the odds are heavily against, they are at least in the realm of possibility.
Mr, Woodford could be constrained as you say. If he were a private investor I would write off his failure to divest as an unwillingness to make paper losses "real" by selling and not a sign of real confidence but as a fund manager Mr. Woodford is judged and scored by his investors each quarter and so failure to divest will not help his numbers since losses have to be confronted. Thus, unlike many average investors he much less to hang on for the wrong reasons.
Staying on topic, it is my judgement that the past is likely to repeat itself here and NWBO investors should be careful not to over-invest based on the expectation on news in a given time frame.
Anyone is free to reject that judgement by sticking to counterarguments based upon the facts about NWBO in the past and present and informed speculation about the future of NWBO.
I cannot advise anyone exactly what to do with buying or selling NWBO since that would involve many personal factors like: income, income stability, risk tolerance, existing savings, expenses, projected income requirements in retirement, and projected time until retirement.
Whether buying NWBO makes sense for anyone depends not just all of those factors named above but the risk level involved in NWBO.
I view NWBO to be almost as risky as a Lotto ticket and while I might or might not buy more, I will be honest about the level of risk and likelihood of short, medium and near term success involved.
Woodford's tough public actions with respect to NWBO suggests that his understanding of the term unfounded is more in line with my interpretation than yours.
If we did not have Mr. Woodford's actions to give us additional insight then you would have a much stronger point and probably be right, since 'unfounded' has a strong negative connotation. Though British English might different, for instance the word 'scheme' in Early Access to Medications Scheme sounds sinister to American but not to British ears.
So whether Mr. Woodford still believes that Phase V has enough merit to be worth addressing or not, he clearly did so at the time, even if, as you said he was mistaken to take public action.
So we will see whether Mr. Woodford's absence is due to his having changed his views on NWBO or not but as you said, he could have really influenced the situation in favor of NWBO and chose not. This would have made financial sense for Neil Woodford and he could have propped up his existing holdings by greater involvement and any kind of expression of confidence.
I have seen talk of class action lawsuits being coordinated with negative P.R.'s and I used to believe in that but then people used to believe that ice cream caused Polio because people got sick from polio during months when we ate ice cream. Correlation does not show causality.
The Direct news, was good not great. I am thinking that they will want to wait for game changing news like Phase 3 and then if the investigation slaps them on the wrist it will get buried.
Evidence being another word or synonym for fact. But keep arguing semantics.
I apologize that dictionary definitions cannot include synonyms for every word included in the definition. But for example, the phrase "not based on evidence" could read "not based on evidence" depending upon the turn of phrase the dictionary writer preferred to use.
Foundation being another word for proof. We can argue semantics all day.
But semantics aside, Neil Woodford's actions show that he took the Phase V allegations seriously and was obviously not entirely sure whether foundation or proof or whatever could be found to refute or sustain them or not. His lack of action, by not investing more, even at these low, low prices, says a lot as well. He is not sure how things are going to turn out and like us, he has risked enough.
It then took 3 months just to impanel and investigation and then we are roughly 9 months out with no end in sight.
If the Phase V allegations are as ridiculous as is commonly claimed should this not be a short investigation?
Could it be that some of the investigation's findings will be unfavorable to NWBO and they need to have great science news as an offset?
Mr. Woodford said "unfounded" which means not yet proven.
Mr. Woodford's actions with respect to Phase V speak far more loudly than his words and show him giving credence where it counts: with his money.
How much money has Mr. Woodford invested in NWBO this year again?
Zero.
But no, despite our historically low price and our putative closeness to ending Phase 3 he's not investing.
So that Phase V report and Mr. Woodford's abandoning new investments in NWBO are wholly unrelated right?
All right but since Neil Woodford was a big justification for many NWBO longs to invest in or at least invest more in this stock, then I think that your interpretation is even worse for a long thesis than arguing that Neil Woodford saw something legitimate in Phase V's criticism.
I give Phase V some credence because Neil Woodford did.
Someone like him does not have to be scared of his own investors, especially since as we've seen, he's been able to survive losing almost all of that $180 million dollars with nary a scratch.
Mr. Woodford acted on Phase V because he saw it as a serious issue not because his investors could scare him.
Ms. Powers could have responded to Mr. Woodford by being more accountable. Instead, to preserve her own power and because, as you said, she got angry, she did a disservice to shareholders by bringing us right back to depending upon toxic financings to survive.
Neil Woodford did not get rich by being a fool so if he let Phase V's influence his decision making about NWBO that suggests they have more merit then any of us are prepared to admit.
Truth is truth and it does not matter why Phase V came forward but simply that by his reaction that Mr. Woodford thought and obviously still believes that they have some credibility.
Well, didn't you know that deleting a PR means it never happened? It's a shame that I'm not selling Great Soviet Encyclopedias because NWBO investors would be a great market!
I cannot explain what does not exist.
Mr. Woodford stopped injecting money into NWBO about this time last year when he publicly gave credence to the Phase V allegations and demanded an independent investigation and made nominations for directors which were ultimately not honored.
Since that time he has not put one farthing into this company.
Is that what you mean by continuing injections of money?
I do not know if NWBO is a bubble now, but it certainly was when it went to $10.00 on nothing but our own wishful thinking and management having led us on to think that something big was imminent.
Just like the stock market, maybe NWBO can recover from the bubble bursting and eventually go back past where we were. Time will tell.
When I bought my first shares in October 2013, Phase 3 was only a year away from concluding.
It is now October 2016, three years later and maybe, we'll see an end in November 2016 though even management apologists admit that we probably won't be told that the end has finally come until months later.
How many years has it been since they first started bragging about Hospital Exemption and the ability to earn revenue on DCVax L before approval was even granted?
Now of course, just like they pulled down that 2013 PR about the efficacy check for DCVax L, they try to rewrite history and say that HE was never a big deal or expected to amount to much. That is when they are saying anything at all.
Ditto with EAMS in the UK. NWBO was the first but has since been leapfrogged by other companies who have at least bothered to apply for Phase 2 of that process.
For such a National Health Service priority, I don't see much happening with DCVax L in the U.K.
So yes, in fact I can dismiss those two programs as a bunch of hype and little else.
NWBO was a bubble at $10.00 and we all have the sticky gum on our face to prove it.
Is it a bubble now? No, not unless it goes back up to 50 cents on spec and we start buying.
Maybe but was there, like NWBO, a CPXX who dramatically changed his views? If it was just Adam Feuerstein I'd agree, but Steve Giardino also went against NWBO.
Shorting one of these stocks or shorting anything requires almost reckless bravery.
Look at the film the "Big Short" to see that this system is rigged to favor speculation on the upside.
Hopefully, but with NWBO if nothing seems to be happening it is because well, nothing is happening:
Where are we on HE negotiations in Germany again?
What is happening specifically with Sawston?
What about EAMS in the UK part two?
Oh and of course what about that investigation that was supposed to refute the Phase V allegations so that big money investors like Neil Woodford could start investing again?
So maybe this time will be different. Maybe.
But the fact is now i also have a chance of a lifetime to be a part of a company thats on the verge of an monumental financial upside.
Given its unreliability, I could understand anyone looking askance at the clinicaltrials.gov website.
I can be smart enough to realize, that even as others here admit, November 2016 does not magically become a solid time frame we can finally hang our hat on.
Rather, based upon painful prior experience, there is a better than even chance that November 2016 will come and go with no news.
I hope I am wrong but experience speaks loudly.
Good pint Flipper: NWBO would not have to keep us totally in the dark but could issue something like this when the endpoint is reached.
Ms. Powers said years ago that an efficacy look was "pending." Pending means that a decision making process was started and that she was awaiting the result.
So the DMC can try to clean up Ms. Power's remarks but people who believed an efficacy look had begun had a solid basis to do so, at least until the DMC spoke plainly on the topic.
By not buying calls or on margin I can afford to wait though dilution, if left unchecked will eventually destroy my position too. But you're very right: I would not want to be in those investor's shoes when January 2017 rolls around or to endure two and a half more months of holding those calls.
We shall see but if NWBO continues to fail when it comes to forging revenue generating partnerships, raising non-toxic funding or getting HE in Germany to be more than a dead letter then every delay starts doing more harm than good no matter how much we try to take limited information and use it to to turn what is objectively negative into something positive.
NWBO investors cannot afford to keep getting diluted like this. Period.
I hope you're right, but NWBO is Groundhog Day: the Investment.
Every year, during Q4 we think:
Surely they can't kick the can down the road any more.
One way or another we'll finally know what is going to happen right?
And then we crest the hill and see another 365 days worth of road to travel, on foot, through the desert.
We thought the last year and the only news we got was a slap via toxic financing.
There's no reason NWBO would be unable to announce the end of data collection as an event in its own right and then give an estimated time frame (not a solid data) for the analysis to be complete.
After all, once they're done collecting data, they're done collecting data, so the FDA can't claim they're skewing the trial because it is not like data collected after the announcement was going to come into play either way.
Naturally, though, NWBO will almost certainly look very hard for any excuse they can find not to share information that could help their beleaguered shareholders.
A worm on a hook looks tasty to a fish too.
NWBO is risky enough without buying calls or other time-sensitive investments. That goes double for a stock that has disappointed investor expectations for action by a certain date over and over again.
Besides, if you really want to run a big risk for what could be a big reward, NWBO is cheap enough now that you can plenty of money without reckless moves like buying calls or buying on margin.