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You're probably right since anticipated news in September/October is too far away to explain this sharp a rise.
Do you regard the rumor as credible?
Either way, if people are buying on the rumor and its only worth 11.41 a share...people must not think it is much of a deal or else there's precious little evidence.
Thanks for the perspective.
Maybe, but that volume seems kind of crazy over something that may or may not happen in September/October.
Still your guess is as good as any.
Okay we're at $11.39, so at the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, I must ask:
Why did this happen on no news?
How did they stop the shorts from walking it down later in the day (though they managed a bit in the last five minutes of trading)?
Old doesn't mean DCVax L is obsolete but since technology evolves rapidly I'd have to say that yes, its no longer bleeding edge.
My 2010 MacBook Pro is "old" by laptop standards but thanks to the 8 GB of RAM I upgraded it to, and my diligent application of OS X updates old doesn't mean obsolete.
I think they've tweaking DCVax L in similar ways as been discussed extensively over the past day or so. That's rather like adding a bit of RAM and installing the newest version of OS X.
Just like it makes no economic sense to ditch my 2010 MacBook, NWBO has no reason to ditch DCVax L and every reason to take full advantage of everything it still has to offer.
One thing's for sure: as long as its been DCVax L will still not be like Duke Nukem Forever.
DCVax L is an older technology, and almost certainly a less effective treatment than DCVax Direct, though it is still ahead of SOC. That's just reality.
I have sometimes thought that NWBO delayed the completion of the Phase 3 trial by a year to buy more time for Direct results to become public. In this way, if the blinded DCVax L trial were to produce less than stellar results, Ms. Powers could point to the great results of DCVax Direct in the Phase 1 and maybe hurry up the release of some Phase 2 results.
Do I think that's likely? No. But possible? Yes.
Here's the key difference as I understand it, explained in very crude terms:
DCVax L:
DCVax L is made from the lysate sampled from a tumor one time and then a bunch of canned doses are created that can be used for months and years of treatments.
The canned doses are great but they have a downside: whatever antigens they target are what they target and that's it.
That means that if the remaining tumor cells left behind after the surgery can survive long enough, they might be able to evolve to stop expressing the antigens DCVax L picked up from the lysate.
Thus, over time, DCVax L would become less effective if it fails to eradicate the remaining tumor cells.
Still DCVax L is a hell of a lot better than the other options patients with GBM have right now. And nat
Plus, if the tumor comes back, there's nothing that says you can't debulk it again, grab the lysate and generate a new batch that matches the evolved tumor cells.
DCVax Direct:
Because Direct consists of DC cells that are put directly in the tumor
they start from scratch in picking up the antigens each time they are injected.
In theory Direct can adapt to the tumors as they evolve provided you just keep injecting.
Since tumors can be different genetically even within the same patient, this shows the value of injecting multiple tumors more often instead of one tumor infrequently.
Deprived of tumors ability to mutate away from expressing the antigens DCVax Direct is targeting, the tumors exposed to DCVax Direct should be easier to dispatch and keep dead than those treated with DCVax L.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "matured via proprietary process" what Ms. Powers referring to she made the infamous "secret sauce" remark?
As an analyst, publish a Seeking Alpha article about how this article casts light on NWBO's DCVax L.
That is preferable to calling me and other people vulgar names on a message board.
In this way, you're more likely to attract scrutiny from people with science and/or biotech investing backgrounds who can vet your thesis.
As a bonus, you'll be on record panning DCVax L when the data comes in.
If you're right, you'll get credit for seeing what happened before it happened.
If you're wrong, you'll presumably have to do the right thing and admit it.
Either way, its a better use of your time and our time.
Plus you'll still have an impact on this board, as we'll be debating your article and the reaction to it.
There's little left to debate about DCVax L until we get more material from the Information Arm, the Hospital Exemption program in Germany, EAMS in the UK, or of course the few bits and pieces we can might before the blinded Phase 3 trial is complete such as a full enrollment announcement.
Doubtless, even when we get some or all of this information, the debate over there about DCVax L will probably remain just as vitriolic and childish as it is now until the question is settled once and for all by FDA rejection or approval.
Wow...this is like modern lay loan sharking, only worse. I wonder if anyone has ever done an academic study of this.
I'm sure the hedge funds would argue that they are providing liquidity and capital that would otherwise be denied to micro-cap stocks. But if their business model is contingent upon driving promising companies into bankruptcy then this is pretty hard to defend.
One has to wonder how much scientific and medical progress has been retarded by practices like these, a problem made worse by the fact that many Big Pharma companies prefer to let the little guys struggle through trials, only to swoop in at the right moment and "buy growth" rather than fully develop their own pipelines.
This goes beyond a simple issue of fairness since it could well be the case that too much critical research is getting stopped by bankruptcy before it can come to the broader industry's attention and thus never ends up being pursued.
I hope that this is not the case.
It's hard to say since the people converting the notes and the warrants into shares may or may not be involved in shorting.
They could just be bullish about NWBO and feel that now is the time to have shares in hand because this stock is about to rise.
Either way, this seems like good news.
Funny I thought we retail investors were providing moon shot funding.
Good to hear! We'll see what happens.
I always assumed it was "pay to play" where NWBO was expected to make a certain level of contribution to the telethon and hadn't, probably due to limited resources at the time.
Fair enough.
People are naturally skeptical of purported breakthroughs in intractable scientific problems like cancer and the one of the only ways to combat that legitimate skepticism is total transparency.
Look at Lockheed Martin's claim be pretty far on the road to figuring out fusion power and how that just kind of went away amidst murmurs of disbelief.
And bear in mind that Lockheed Martin a major corporation with a long, respected track record of innovation.
Unless and until NWBO either gets a treatment approved by the FDA or starts being a lot more aggressive and transparent in dealing with the media, this company will be continue to be largely ignored.
The drumbeat is more like one or two light taps.
Even this latest article buries NWBO near the bottom with very little detail. At least its better than Stand Up to Cancer last year, NWBO was not mentioned by name on TV whereas other biotech companies were mentioned by name.
Good point, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
You must be expecting a halt for efficacy then, since this is a blinded trial and a mere "continue" tell the Germans anymore than what we already know.
Excellent! I'm glad to see one of our actual beneficiaries.
I'll be happy to be wrong and you may be right.
I've just stopped factoring in any talk of HE, EAMS, or even a partnership with Big Pharma into my calculations.
NWBO is a worthy risk just based upon DCVax L Phase 3 and DCVax Direct.
After the Direct data release and the subsequent price rise, sure, I've been less than thrilled about the stalling of HE but I've accepted it, however grudgingly.
I definitely blame the bureaucrats far more than I blame NWBO for the squandering of the promise of HE to provide early access while its still actually early. This is almost certainly a case of being penny wise and pound foolish here and of refusing to update their old mentality to account for a breathtakingly powerful opportunity.
HE's making the same progress as DCVax Prostate.
To give you an idea what I mean, go use the Internet Archive to go back and check the NWBO website to see how long that's been pending either a trial start or a partnership!
But seriously, NWBO does not seem to need or care about HE and its cousin in the UK and I can guess why:
A year ago, Ms. Powers still needed to use HE and EAMS to make retail investors believe revenue and public recognition for NWBO was right around the corner.
Now that Woodford and other big fish are investing, she doesn't need to trick us retail investors into sticking with a good investment anymore.
Thus, just like DCVax Prostate, HE and EAMS have outlived their usefulness and will be effectively though never officially abandoned.
By the time HE gets going (if it ever does) NWBO will be done with Phase 3 and we won't need it anyway.
Maybe I'm wrong about HE, and if I am, given the number of NWBO shares I hold, I won't be eating crow, I'll be eating foie gras.
But either way, giving up on HE reimbursement has made me a lot less frustrated as an NWBO investor and is helping me to sit back and enjoy the ride.
She described her therapy as "DC Vac vaccination shots every month" (emphasis mine).
This could be a simple misspelling on her part and she is talking about DCVax by NWBO.
Or, just as likely, it could be her way of abbreviating another Dendritic Cell (DC) Vaccination (Vac) treatment besides DCVax L or DCVax Direct.
If you want NWBO to answer, create an account and post an article on Seeking Alpha covering the controversy.
Don't bash or defend NWBO, just report what is being alleged and that people are alleging it.
Then have someone call both MD Anderson and NWBO to ask about the information in the article.
This does seem rather shady but like it or not, modern journalistic standards allow you to report on what someone else has said, without having to go and verify the veracity or falsehood of what is being alleged.
For example, Harry Reid alleged, without evidence, on the Senate floor that Mitt Romney did not pay his taxes.
Rather than ignore the story until they investigated or at least ask Mr. Reid for his evidence to back up this serious allegation, the media by and large reported Mr. Reid's words as straight news rather than unsupported slander.
Incidentally, Harry Reid admitted (on camera) several years later that he had knowingly lied about Romney's taxes but defended his actions by saying "He didn't win, did he?"
Exactly right, I can believe someone else from that hospital can do this since MD Anderson not only tolerated Dr. Buzdar's speaking out of turn but actually engaged in a bit of retroactive continuity to pretend as if he'd been speaking on their behalf the whole time.
Good point, especially about the activation methods.
Still, this shows that the shorts might not be desperate,
I can't think that the people who shorted from the $6.00 to $8.00 range are too happy right now!
That's certainly true.
We were wrong: the shorts aren't covering.
The question is: Why?
Out the possibilities below, I'm going with #1:
1. They know they're so out of luck their only option is to keep digging their grave until they get to China and escape that way.
By this I mean that they they're shorting with abandon hoping to drive the price down low enough that they can exit with severe but not catastrophic losses. This might just work given that there may, and I emphasize may be a relative information drought in the coming months (nothing until September 2015).
2. The shorts know something or think they know something we don't and they're shorting in anticipation.
3. The shorts honestly believe that DCVax is junk science and that as soon as a pivotal trial's results comes in, NWBO will collapse like a house of cards. This is seemingly Mr. Giordiano's position.
Today's decline was also on somewhat low volume: below average.
Still, the after-market trading you cited goes to show someone wants shares and is willing to pay a premium for them.
I could've picked my shares for cheaper today but I think this price will still look cheap in the long run...much like $8.00 and something shares from just a few weeks ago would be a steal right now.
Sounds, good, I bet you're glad you paid your taxes on that money up front. In my case, I'm holding mine in an ordinary account but I can definitely respect taking the tax advantaged option.
Is anybody else buying a bit on this little dip?
While the shorts are doing their best to knock down the price, that just provides more shares to retail longs.
Every share we scoop up is one less they have to play with. They can't keep this up forever.
The regulations often matter more than the legislation.
I offer 2 examples, one that may not be familiar to you and one that should be:
After 9/11 Congress passed legislation explicitly authorizing pilots to go through thorough training to carry guns in the cockpit so that we would never again have the tragic farce of terrorists defeating and killing Americans with box cutters and our own aircraft.
Unfortunately, the TSA, led by the ironically named John Pistole, did everything they could to undermine enforcement of this new law and to create obstacles to prevent pilots from receiving training and arming themselves.
As a result, the armed pilots legislation is a virtual dead letter and nearly 14 years after 9/11, very few pilots (many of whom are military veterans, reservists, or Air National Guard) are armed.
To be clear, I am not making a partisan political point. John Pistole served both the Bush and Obama administrations.
Neither Republican or Democratic Congresses did anything meaningful to force either President to fire or at least rein in this official.
Naturally, as NWBO investors, we have an even more obvious example: the failure of German authorities and insurers (which are themselves an arm of the government) to speedily implement HE with DCVax L, even though the whole point of HE is to rapidly provide access to lifesaving and transformative treatments. We don't need to rehash that case any further.
The reality is, that as with almost all regulatory agencies, Congress proposes but the FDA disposes.
NWBO is structuring itself as a multi-national firm from Day One.
That's the kind of vision I like to see. I wish the regulatory and fiscal environment in the United States were friendly enough to make this kind of thing unnecessary but we live in the real world if you don't do it, then your competitors will.
No, since discussing other posters would be off topic and against the rules.
But for the sake of argument, if I were making a allusion in an attempt to answer the question that was asked (while staying within the rules), I would not have been alluding to you.
If you go through the discussion, who I would have been alluding to, if I were making an allusion, should be clear.
I apologize for any confusion that I would have created in that case.
But to stay on topic, I am used to the shorts sending posters to say things like "A $15.00 buyout would be great for everyone", seemingly to create anxiety that such a thing would be in the offing.
And the anxiety is not without basis.
As proud as I am about my bet on KYTH I was hoping the company would sell for more than $75.00 a share and some ambulance chasing lawyers agree with me (see the press releases from them under that ticker).
But since I didn't hold that stock for more than a few weeks, I can't complain.
But if NWBO were to sell out too cheaply after I've held it for the better part of two years, well, I'd still take a profit but I'd almost feel as if I'd lost money.
That is the fear the shorts play to, when they have nothing else left to use.
It probably started as an attempt to spread FUD.
You see, someone wants to convince NWBO longs that our expected gains will be far less than we imagine because of a premature merger that benefits insiders at our expense.
This will make it easier to part us from our shares at the present price.
Stock manipulation will always be a problem we'll have to grapple with until NWBO finally gets big enough to get consistent media and analyst coverage.
Roaches tend to scurry away once you turn the lights on.
DCVax's strong safety profile is a fact not an opinion.
The shorts can try to make stuff up, but as a wise man once said "You are entitled to have your own opinions but not your own facts."
The safety of DCVax been proven in the Phase 1 trials for DCVax L, DCVax Direct, and even for the older technology embodied in DCVax Prostate.
Regulators in several different countries have seen the same facts that I have:
The FDA has clearly indicated its confidence in the safety aspect of the therapy by allowing immediate progression to Phase 2 for Direct without having to wait for all of the Direct Phase 1 data to even come in.
Likewise, the German regulators have allowed DCVax L to benefit from their new Hospital Exemption program, something that would not be allowed for something dangerous.
Then we have the participation of the UK and soon Canada as well...
Without Cognate and Powers, NWBO would be bankrupt.
If anyone disagrees, then please explain how NWBO could have afforded to stay afloat and conduct trials in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and in the years afterward.
Who else was going to keep providing support for more than half a decade to keep this company going?
Even then a lot of toxic financing had to take place.
So, yes, Cognate is getting a sweetheart deal and yes, they are going to use their leverage to take measures to offset their risk.
Wouldn't you do the same in their place?
But have Cognate and Ms. Powers been using NWBO as a cash cow with no intention of rolling out DCVax as a viable product?
No, not in my estimation.
If you wait for your investing thesis to be validated by the whole market, you're going to be too late to make real money.
For example, do you guys remember when I was frustrated waiting for NWBO to get the Direct news out?
Well, to keep myself from doing something stupid with my shares, I started paying attention to other opportunities.
I bought a little over $500.00 dollars of KYTH at 43 when I heard a random mainstream news story that their Phase III trial was approved and they might be commercializing as early as this summer.
Today, KYTH just got bought out and the price spiked to $73.
And no, I'm not pumping KYTH because its too late to make big money there now so there's not much point, remember...they just got bought out.
My point is that being able to size up a stock like NWBO before everyone else realizes what is going on, will make you some nice money.
While my risk of failure with NWBO is somewhat greater than it was with KYTH, my potential reward is also many times greater.