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Michael bigger was in Bethesda last month and his cryptic Twitter posts this week is quite intriguing. Sequence of these 3 tweets below in particular on Nov 2!
Pondering this equation Joe Burnett + Linda Liau + then some^1000 ... $CLPT $NWBO #DCVax #fireworks….
Pondering this equation Joe Burnett + Linda Liau + then some^1000 ... $CLPT $NWBO #DCVax #fireworks
— Michael Bigger (@biggercapital) November 3, 2021
The more improbable, the more bandwidth required to decode and that is the information you want to focus on… As how you interpret it is up to you. I use a simple framework to do so. It works for me
— Michael Bigger (@biggercapital) November 3, 2021
Perched a few thousands feet over Cedar City, I’ll spend the next few weeks pondering how this elevate everyone involved. 😀 pic.twitter.com/5LxRRO8hZr
— Michael Bigger (@biggercapital) November 3, 2021
I am leaning towards Lancet given the publications we saw a few weeks ago as well as the strong following they have had amongst the key players in the UK over the years. Plus the Thu, Nov 18 timing would work out perfectly (fact they publish every Thursdays) with SNO opening…
If they do manage to pull off the timing of TLD, publication, and SNO reveal all within a space of a day or two, that would lead to such strong media attention and appreciation of SP during that week. We would be all over the social media and could morph into a biotech meme! Not that we don’t know already but that would also demonstrate the incredible respect the scientific community has for LL as well as what NWBO has been able to achieve. Don’t think this has ever been done before in such a way!
Sorry I didn’t get a chance to respond to your message, but yes I know the senior CLPT team very well. Worked together for a couple of years not too long ago and still share great relationship. Small world!
All the naysayers that say LL has moved on from NWBO, this is another strong confirmation for me that she is heavily invested in NWBO’s success. Michael Bigger being the common thread.
I am somewhat familiar with CLPT’s big business initiatives and some of their KOL customers. Another great board member for them would have been Dr. Mark Richardson at MGH, who is one of CLPT’s KOL customer and have done talks that were sponsored by CLPT. He is one of the world renowned neurosurgeon as well, but he is heavily involved in DBS and epilepsy surgeries, and that is also a big part of CLPT business. Why pick LL over someone like him for example? Did Michael Bigger have a role in it? ;)
I worked directly with the CEO and quite a few of the senior management at Clearpoint in our former jobs! We still meet at bigger scientific conferences and so on. They are a great team, so I am not surprised LL agreed. My sense is Michael Bigger initiated this as he is heavily invested in both NWBO & CLPT. I will meet these ex-colleagues at a big conference in Chicago in early Dec so I will be sure to get some insight.
LOL, I continue to hold my SoFI and LCID investments for the long term. They have both been on a really nice run recently. But I have a lot more riding on NWBO and I think we will all be richly rewarded! Just a matter of time. I am feeling the week of Nov 15. Thu, Nov 18 is when Lancet publishes (every Thu). And we open SNO conference on Nov 19. Fingers crossed!
Look at what happened to this company today - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tiny-u-biotech-jumps-930-142156758.html
Seems there are ardent followers on StockTwits.
I expect a similar pop or even higher when our publication comes out.
I think we disagree on that, but that’s ok. We will see how it eventually plays out. For someone like Merck they won’t care about adding 50-70 more people (and $500M or thereabouts) on their payroll when they are spending $25B on NWBO acquisition. Time of execution in terms of scaling the business coupled with end-to-end business control, preserving gross margins, and importantly people that are experts in their domain are going to be of paramount importance to them as they get into personalized vaccine business where they have limited or no expertise in….even though NWBO owns Flaskworks and the facility at Sawtson they don’t own the highly trained folks at Sawston…. that’s super valuable to someone like Merck…otherwise they will lose time in building that up all over again….I have been personally involved in top 5 medical device company acquisitions as well….and know first hand how they think…
I don’t think either one of us are feeding the troll…this strategy obviously does not fit for NWBO at this stage at where we’re given the resources, so LP did the right thing in terms of being the common thread between the 2 outfits.
What I meant to say is that LP will sell both the companies together. Of course, each company will have an independent valuation. For example, if the buyer pays $25B for NWBO, they will likely pay additional $500M (about 2% of NWBO price) or thereabouts to acquire Sawston. As a shareholder, I don’t really care if I don’t participate in taking a cut of that $500M Sawston portion because I really believe that Sawston will add a lot more value to the NWBO’s overall buyout price in the eyes of an acquirer. As a buyer, I want to buy expertise in manufacturing for a personalized vaccine as well, so I can develop and scale Flaskworks quickly at Sawtson through my own people. Otherwise I’d be a bit nervous to pay such a premium on NWBO market cap.
She will package both NWBO and Sawston for $25B+ if the sale concludes in 2022. Every subsequent year, price goes up by $10B! Sawston would be around 2-5% of that or less. NWBO shareholders will receive a minimum of 95-98% of that value! I will take that any day as Sawston makes NWBO an attractive acquisition target for a fraction of the cost!
It’s clear that NWBO has solid advisory board coupled with LL+KA, who are all key opinion leaders and want this to succeed globally. My personal opinion is also that this is also the major difference between NWBO and CVM (in addition of our broad technology platform). My guess is these highly accomplished and networked folks convinced LP to hold off because they are well connected within the scientific community and regulators to foresee what was coming in 2021 - updated WHO GBM definition, Lancet publications that came out last month comprising of scientists from UCLA, Harvard, and FDA. So they urged NWBO team to utilize the time to work on their own high impact publication closely following on the heels of the above catalysts as well as getting their manufacturing sorted in preparation of BLA in 2022.
Shorts and naysayers certainly wanted them to release news much sooner without the backing of the publication, scientific community, and FDA. This way, they can start building a trial failure narrative by casting doubts on the dataset and endpoint changes as soon as the news comes out, which they will still do after news and publication…but they won’t get much traction and will likely damage their credibility to a point of no return….
Thanks for the follow-up! I think the big news will hit when it’s least expected. My intuition is we will see positive announcement soon since it’s been gloomy and majority of the folks are not expecting TLD news this year.
Yeah, it’s also published on their website that it will be revealed on the opening day of the conference… I have personally been attending neuroscience conferences (focusing on medical device side) for almost 20 years now and don’t recall seeing this behavior, to be honest. Very intriguing!
This coupled with the accumulation (increased volume) over the last week or two as well as the publications that came out recently supporting ECA approach is pointing towards TLD+publication in Nov…Nov would be about 6-7 months or so when they likely unblinded themselves as evidenced from LL’s presentations during the spring highlighting updated SAP…so timing is about right too from a publication perspective! Exciting days/weeks ahead.
That’s extremely interesting. I have been wondering that myself. Aren’t LBAs typically out a week or two prior to the conference? Are we gearing up for a major reveal at SNO and TLD+publication in parallel?
UK and EU approvals are a done deal, so that scenario will never materialize! The battle is to convince FDA
The facility is owned by NWBO and they could kick them (Advent) out any time they want! What’s so difficult to understand?
I don’t know how much cash infusion NWBO has provided over the last couple of years, but I am assuming it’s much less than what it would cost to keep these employees on payroll..
Agreed. Big money is in the IP and technology rather than manufacturing, similar to Apple and Foxconn. Besides, NWBO barely has enough cash to support their own folks and get TLD+publication out. Can’t afford to have another 40-50 people on their payroll at this stage….
A bit of both, I think. They likely didn’t have the official certificate until today (although may have gotten other indications that they are approving it a few days ago). So they didn’t PR until today. Also, the pressure on SP and anxiousness we have seen amongst retail investors over the last few days around missing their timelines yet again, warrants (increase in outstanding shares), etc probably got to them to some degree as well….which is both good and surprising at the same time…..good because they do care about retail investor sentiments as well as supporting the SP to some degree….surprising because they have been so disciplined so far with staying quiet and not unnecessarily putting out a PR. Just not sure if they had planned to do HTA certification PR earlier if MHRA site inspection would have occurred in a more timely fashion. Also, I thought one of the posters that spoke to DI this month stated that DI said to him that they will only PR major milestones such as MHRA certification, TLD, but not interim steps or something along those lines….
LOL. I bought some more at 1.03 yesterday too! Holding over 250k. Some of my friends and families combined we are close to a million shares now!
They obviously listened to you! :)
Was anyone able to catch couple of symposiums LL was involved in earlier this month? It seemed the participation was restricted but not sure if anyone from our board was able to sneak in or received any feedback from those that were fortunate to attend. Trying to understand if there were any breadcrumbs…
Thanks! I do understand and am familiar with everything you have outlined. But there are quite a few OTCs (particularly of major European and Asian international companies) that are on OTC and have over $50B market cap with significant investors. Basically, my point is they haven’t shown in their actions that they value time and/or are planning ahead much. The change in direction from Aug-Sep 2020 to Oct 5 2020 PR illustrates that. I still believe that’s the right move (what they detailed in Oct 5) but it appears they didn’t have that foresight a month ago or perhaps they learned something new during those few weeks that suddenly caused a change in direction.
I’d be disappointed if they haven’t utilized this quiet period to work on BLA paperwork behind the scenes and getting some big investors or big pharma partners on board (as soon as TLD+publication are out).
One thing that continues to baffle me is the lack of interest in investment community despite having a game-changing cancer technology that is on the verge of ph 3 TLD and publication. Another concerning bit is management’s history of missing timelines. Can we trust this management to get their BLA act together in a timely fashion even once the TLD and publication are out given their constant lapses? I believe a big chunk of retail investors are in this due to the incredible work LL and UCLA team has done with this technology over the years and their support and persistence.
We have been on the 1 yard line (as DI says) for some time and can’t seem to get to the finish line. They should have been able to line up a ton of investors as well as BLA paperwork by now over the last few months in preparation of TLD. It appears that we have quite a few anxious retail investors here that will look to exit part of their positions if there is no major update in Nov and I don’t blame them.
Agreed. Supply chain has nothing to do with what they are doing from a ph 3 TLD and publication perspective. It likely would impact their Flaskworks deployment if they want to have multiple devices there for testing, but again MHRA certification shouldn’t be contingent on that for now.
It certainly seems like we will have good news soon. Perhaps in the next week or two? Seeing the volume over the last few days it’s looking like someone (influential) wants to accumulate as much as they can before the big reveal!!! I have been surprised at how long they have kept the positive news to themselves without any major leak over the last few months. It’s incredible but something’s gotta give! :)
Agreed, but we are barely scraping by just keeping the lights on to maintain NWBO payroll and loans. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship is how I see it.
That’s fine, but we become more attractive to Merck. I don’t think Merck would pay in excess of $20B or anywhere close to that for Nwbo if they don’t have in-house manufacturing expertise to go along. How much would it cost them to buy CRL as opposed to Advent? At least a few billion more. They would rather use that savings to pay extra premium towards the purchase of NWBO and some towards building their own Advent facility in the US. And who benefits from that?
I still think Linda is doing the right thing. As a counter to your argument, do you think Thermo, Bigger, and others would continue to support her and give her cash given the learnings from Toucan? In the bigger scheme of things, this is the right move as they have control over Flaskworks technology and hopefully deploy it much faster than trusting an outside CDMO.
In a buyout scenario this would be way more attractive to someone like Merck than having to rely on CRL for a long time with no manufacturing expertise in-house. LP can package both (NWBO and Advent) in a deal which would create value for all 3 parties. With Merck’s scale and resources, they may want to replicate the same Advent UK model in the US quickly post acquisition and cut off CRL sooner than later to preserve their margins.
Another argument is we don’t know how much would NWBO have to spend for an outside CDMO such as CRL to test Flaskworks technology and importantly what sort of priority they would get. I don’t think they would saved much even if they were fortunate enough to get some priority. And who knows CRL might say no or not do it in all earnestness because it impacts their future business. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty there and potentially loss of time and resources again at a critical juncture.
By the way, don’t you think Elon Musk’s relationship is contentious between Tesla, Solar City & SpaceX? Tesla shareholders (over)paid for Solar City acquisition and he owned a ton of Solar City shares and his cousins were the founders.
Could someone post data on daily percentage short over the last week or two (where we had quite a bit of increase in shares outstanding due to warrant activity) v/s a period in the last month or two when there was little to no increase in outstanding shares?
Why would DI say they don’t wish to raise additional capital at the current share price? The obvious reason we all think of is TLD+ publication release will catapult the SP to 4-5x and it’s coming in the next week few weeks. The other reason could be they have an offer sheet from Merck based on certain milestone and are being advised not to dilute anymore and/or don’t need to with warrants providing some cushion. However, they can’t disclose that when DI engages with shareholders. Thoughts?
When was that comment from LL regarding “freeze the tumor”? That’s pretty powerful in my mind without revealing the final outcome of our Ph3. She believes we are going to get approval!
The delay in publication is because they wanted FDA researchers involved in those publications we saw couple of weeks ago. Sort of them leading the way in terms of suggesting that ECA comparison is acceptable under certain circumstances. This makes the reviewers job easier in terms of approving our upcoming ph 3 publication. This way, the chances of controversy is minimized. I still believe we see our results and publication this year.
I have a sneaky feeling that some or all of our reviewers might be the same as the ones that reviewed the 2 publications that just came out.
Don’t you think that article motivates NWBO management, LL, KA, and the advisory board to get this across the finish line even more so. Not that they didn’t see this coming, but I am sure it charges them up even more! The more naysayers the higher the ceiling post TLD+ journal article as we would be sort of Cinderella story for the media world. I think they (management) are doing a fabulous job of staying disciplined and not appearing desperate or overly promotional!
Bigger seems to a good guy who invests predominantly in biotech companies with bright future. I am extremely familiar with his other big investment over the last few years (CLPT). Worked very closely with majority of their leadership team including the CEO when we all worked for the same medical device company.
It could come out any week now but my speculation is that it appears in the monthly oncology edition. Could it appear on the cover page of Nov 2021 edition? I think so! Again, it’s sort of my wishful thinking!
Also their fast track review is really quick. So even if it was first submitted in July-Aug time frame, we could appear any week now! Furthermore, a number of their senior editors are from London area (background from UCL and others) where NWBO seems to have a huge following and support. So everything is lined up nicely!
It looks like our publication will be in Lancet too. The fact that Tim Cloughesy from UCLA is part of this publication, this seems very well planned by the key opinion leading scientific community tipping their hat to the efforts of LL over the years. Introduction of DCVAX-L as SOC is imminent now!
Our publication could be out on Nov 1. Sort of follow up to this article!
Didn’t LP say in the annual meeting they are not planning on releasing/presenting results at a scientific conference? Rather a top notch detailed peer reviewed journal article is the route they have collectively decided on.
It seems like they are setting up to be bought out by Merck! They are obviously demanding a robust patent portfolio before they invest in the vicinity of $20B. We could be like the Tesla of Oncology industry. Personalized on-demand service (for better patient care and better outcomes)! Thoughts?
Yeah, that's a great one! So many golden nuggets. Staying patient is very tough but fortune favors the brave, as they say!