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Volume has been reassuringly anemic, whereby it's pretty clear that in continuation of the period between June 30-August 4, Missling isn't dumping shares to LPC. Hmmmm, I wonder what he knows?
Good stuff! It defies belief that they would invest this much money (and 50% of an appropriately powered / 48+ week trial is going to be a significant figure) without knowing something and / or immediately preceding disappointing PDD results. In a non-manipulated market that 50% would be estimated and appropriately added to the MC. I figured it should be at least a 15% bump to SP just due to its effect on preventing further dilution over the next 18-24 mos. I don’t necessarily expect the SP bump, as I think we’re solely waiting for PDD results at this point, but this bit of info is a serious crumb / dot / warning by Herr Missling.
Planning to initiate (with considerable help) a general PD trial is huge news imo, and if the PDD results are positive, the implication of a much larger PD patient universe also taking the drug will supersize the company’s bottom line.
You seem to be conflating Newron (Sarizotan) whose trial failed earlier this year and Neuren (Trofinetide), who has partnered up with Acadia after promising Phase 2 results in 2017. Not sure why it took Neuren / Acadia 2 years to initiate a Phase 3 trial.
Also speaking volumes is the fact that the 1st patient dosed PR came out a mere 6 weeks and 3 days before the positive news story. It's a 12 week trial. This is only the beginning. Tick tock, tick tock.
Seres Therapeutics similarly said "mid-year" and released results on Monday. How did that work out for their shareholders? Tick Tock, Tick Tock.
Based solely on the completed enrollment PR’s and length of trial (7 vs 14 wks) Rett should be almost exactly 3 months behind. While the PDD clin trials entry mentions a 2 week washout and 2 week safety follow up, l don’t see the same for Rett. Anyone know if there’s a wash-out period for Rett (perhaps not as there’s no presently approved treatment to washout?) If there is neither, that means disregarding other factors, the Rett readout should be approximately 2 months behind.
But as you point out, it isn’t nearly complex, has a much smaller n, and there may be a desire to have PDD and Rett read outs in close proximity of each other to preserve gains, or have an immediate rebound if PDD results aren’t great. This could account for the delay in PDD and potential desire to expedite the Rett readout. Plus, there will be another adult Rett readout following up shortly thereafter for which detailed analysis can be processed in aggregate.
All that said, I’ll be shocked if the Rett readout comes first, but pleasantly so. It would be great if they could deliver it by October options expiration!
If the PDD results are knockout good, look no further than Seres, who at one point today was up 600% to $33. Over the last few months it’s had a similar SP and MC as AVXL, and interestingly enough promised results mid-year.
Man, I sure hope there was something to Clint’s offhand remark that the longer it takes for a PDD readout, the better. I’m not sure about the logic, unless they were planning to share great data with a regulatory body / BP before PRing it, but It is the one promising aspect as we enter the later stages of mid-year.
Wait, what? The stock finished down 25c Wednesday, and jumped up after the 4:05 PR, but still finished down 31c more on Thursday. If one had options, they could never have even benefitted from this extremely brief run-up.
There wasn’t even a run-up. The brief euphoria happened outside market hours, maxed around 30% and was fewer than 500,000 shares.
Except the very similar primary endpoint of the PDD trial (CDR Continuity of Attention / Cogstate IDN) blew the standard of care out of the water in the non dose-optimized 32n 2A AD study.
Great stuff! Let’s hope Missling does have an idea of the results, as not selling shares to LPC is as good a sign as any.
Many a stock in the Covid-era has had news at 4 pm, appreciated nicely AH, and then gone absolutely ape the next morning pre-mkt....sometimes even on flimsy news. (of course those stocks go back down, but there are plenty of chances to get out with a huge profit, particularly if you owned it ahead of time) I wouldn't be surprised by anything tomorrow.
For the last 8 quarters, there’s been a PR announcing the date 2, 7, 5, 2, 8, 2, 1 and 2 days beforehand. I think we’ll see a PR early next week and the results will be announced Thursday or Monday/Tuesday of the following week. Looking back 4 years (12 quarter reports) they never seem to do it on Friday and it’s always been between the 6-11th.
Yeah, quick results indicates positive results....like ZYNE, who announced they'd completed enrollment for their 14 week trial 30 days after AVXL (2/26), and announced their amazing topline data 4 weeks ago...oh wait, their data was no good. How could that be?
Or SAVA, who indicated in a March update they'd be analyzing their data through the month of May, yet prematurely announced their trial's failure on May 15.
It’s also an estimate made before anyone knew when the last patient would be enrolled.
What's more, the Cogstate IDN test (which Anavex deems comparable to the primary endpoint for the PDD trial) for the n=32, non-optimized dose (participants were receiving as little as 10 mg) ALZ trial achieved statistically significant improvements (P<.01) vs the standard of care after 5 and 17 weeks. I like our chances with 80+ subjects in the PDD trial, receiving high and medium doses, in comparison to the other 40+ receiving placebo.
Yeah, good point. For some reason I incorrectly read the open interest for July 5 puts, which isn’t too far off from the open 5 call interest. Well here’s hoping they do bring it up to 5, and beyond come Monday.
Lincoln park can sell below $4.92. The amended agreement just requires shareholder approval for Missling to sell more than 20% of the outstanding float (12 million shares), unless he sells them with an average price of at least $4.92.
As for options, I’m pretty sure the big power players (who move the price around expiration) are selling the calls, not buying them, and hence the reason they tend to be made worthless . They have no incentive to move the price up near $5 unless they want to sell more calls that they then make worthless on Friday. It’s hard to see that as their strategy given it’s Tuesday and we’re almost 20% below $5.
His reworking of the agreement made it significantly tougher to dilute beyond a certain level without shareholders approval. He now would need to sell at an average price of $4.92 vs $3.06 before. Would you do that if you were expecting bad results?
If he was worried about bad results, Missling could’ve kept quiet and sold a ton of shares (well beyond the 10 million limit per last years agreement) before the average price fell below $3.06. You don’t think he knew the reworked agreement would be used to drive the price down in the short-term?
Yes, it is mid-year but it'll be mid-year a month and a half from now too.
I think there is something to the notion that if the results were crappy, we'd have heard about it by now (And conversely, be careful when you wish for quick results...unless you hold July calls). ZYNE PRed their Fragile X trial had completed enrollment a full month AFTER AVXL PRed their enrollment complete for PDD. Each trial was 14 weeks long, and Zyne reported their crappy results super quickly... 2 weeks ago.
Is there a add-on 2 week washout period at the beginning of the 7 week long US Rett trial? I haven't seen anything to suggest there is on AVXL literature or clinicaltrials.gov, whereas one is mentioned for the PDD trial on said site (as well as a 2 week safety follow-up). I'm just trying to nail down when the Rett trial could actually finish.
With the 2 week add-on at the beginning and end of the PDD trial, and the Jan 27 fully enrolled PR, June 1st would be the approximate complete date.
How many people do you have to lineup before you can say one is in the mid(dle)?
3, obviously. If we break the year in thirds, this reasonable person would include August in mid-year.
It may have allowed doubt to creep in for some, but in fairness Anavex has consistently mentioned it as a “key clinical milestone” / catalyst in their presentations, so of course it should be PRed / checked off the list after it happened.
Imo, it's a huge reach to infer that Missling would amend the agreement because he knows he is sitting on bad data and covets the ability to sell a measly 2 million more shares (which is solely an automatic calculation based on the total number of outstanding shares now vis a vis the original agreement) at a terribly depressed price. Per the original agreement, he always had the ability to sell more than 10 million shares without shareholder approval so long as the average sold price was above $3.42. So we're to believe that he is afraid the SP is going to fall so far below $3.42 that the average sold price will also fall below $3.42, despite numerous opportunities to sell well above that price? How far would SP have to go down before average price dropped below $3.42....to $2.50? So again, we're to believe Missling was desperate to amend the agreement so he could sell 2 million more shares for $5 million? Why not just sell them in June and July, bring in far more than $5 million, while simultaneously averaging up? Even if he announced bad data in August, Missling could sell significantly more than 10 (or the newly allowed 12) million shares before the average price dropped below $3.42 and he needed shareholder approval to sell more?
The more plausible explanation would be that he does not expect price to drop, and thus amending the agreement and increasing the average price floor (before shareholder approval is required to sell more shares) from $3.42 to $4.92 is bullish. Perhaps it is a signal, akin to his symbolic stock purchases. Or perhaps more likely it's just a neutral part of ordinary business and no reflection on data. But practically speaking, if the data isn't great, selling LP shares now while the SP is high is far more useful than amending the agreement. If it is really good, wait until SP appreciates before selling, but again, amending the agreement would have had no impact on that.
I'm out of posts for today.
Exactly. And raising the average price level from low 3s to 4.92 in order to sell more than 12 million shares without SH approval, hardly seems like an indication that Missling is sitting on bad data.
Immediate RETT improvements are apples and oranges. But the immediate ALZ Cogstate improvements are most certainly apples and apples to PDD's primary endpoint.
If the MM wanted it to initiate a price tank they could’ve. The fact that it didn’t tells me they ran a stop loss (es)
Yeah that about sums it up. We just need competing shorts fighting for shares or a simultaneous influx of buyers. Or, the people who have their sells triggered on the huge volume buys should buy back 15-20 cents lower for a tidy profit. We’d see how much longer the MM would play these games.
MM control of the stock is insane. 70,000 in presumably one buy order gets the stock up 12 cents and 3000 In sells Over the next couple minutes brings it back down 9 cents. This has been happening for days. It’s crazy that it’s an effective way to accumulate, either for an insty or more likely someone covering their shorts.
Nope, watching L2 all day, you are mistaken. Much higher volume of buying today with systematic bleed outs on comparatively tiny volume when the buying abated. The MM will have an interesting time balancing their shares after all the huge orders they fulfilled at .9999 and shares they shorted to start cascading waterfalls downwards.
A lot of smaller bios got killed in the PM today, with AVXL much less in comparison.
As soon as the buying pressure wanes in the slightest, the MM walk it down with 1/10 the volume that brought it up in the first place. Is there any real reason to do this besides trying to fill a large order for a buyer? It has a psychological effect on other buyers, I imagine. Would be nice if they’d do the opposite on occasion, but have to figure it won’t take that much to run it back up as they don’t have an endless supply of shares to sell at .9999 on the way up and sell short to bring it back down.
Took out a huge wall at $5.27. Today has been nearly 100% buying pressure but the MM have done their best to reign in a breakout.
There’s been buying pressure at the ask all day, and the MM consistently fill orders at .9999. In my experience, usually they run out of shares they want to supply and if the buying pressure remains, the stock will take off, which it looks poised to do. Until then, they continue to walk it down on comparatively far fewer shares any time buying pressure wanes.
The volume didn’t support those moves in tandem at all. Moreover, there was no gap.
Yeah the buying did stall for a second at 5. But it took next to nothing to take it down 10 cents. At this level,
and others, MM take it down several cents on limited selling / low volume and someone eventually comes in with big buying pressure to push it back up.
Yeah, and if we are lucky enough to get a Sears like rally, it’d be around $1.10 to equal Sears highest market cap, post BK....and JCP started 1.5 ahead so maybe we’d even get higher. But yeah, I’d take the safe bet now, no question. I’m just hoping someone more familiar with BK process can sketch out the timeline a bit.
Clearly while there is still a hint (and hopefully it’s a lot more substance than that) of a possible acquisition, the stock will move pretty violently and be ripe for the P & D, for which anyone can benefit If they’re not too greedy. My question is at what point in the proceedings is everything finalized, assuming there is no takeover? (in practical terms, what time do we need to be out by) Is there a specific hearing? With JCP’s lawyers looking to expedite everything (not shady at all, when lawyers favorite activity is drawing everything out so they can bill more) what is the soonest it can be? For reference, when Sears declared BK, it’s market cap was 2/3 as much as JCP. It reached its highs 4 months after filing BK (8x or 5.5 as much as JCP’s current MC), and was still double JCP's current market capitalization 2 months after that. (most of us non- long term holders would settle for a double from today’s price) Even now, 1.5 years after filing for Chapter 11, Sears is still puttering around at a JCP equivalent of 6 cents. Even that would be better than being completely wiped out, and Sears shareholders had ample opportunities to abandon ship.
It needs to be a heckuva lot more than $10 million to give up a significant stake in the company. And the $1B upon approval is meaningless when 273, if approved, is guaranteed to be a blockbuster, and the $1B won't close to offset the profit we've shared.. More upfront, less on approval, or no deal, unless Missling is only giving up like 10%. But even still, I wouldn't give up 10% for $10 million when you could achieve the same thing by going to the ATM even at these ridiculous prices
The point of a partnership from Anavex POV is to defray company/investor risk if the drug isn't successful. Under your deal, we presumably could potentially give up a lot (although you didn't specify the stake given to the partner), but are still screwed if the drug is not successful.
Or MBOT, whom he cited as having stellar CEO communication. What a winner! If Missling isn't paying heed, he should be.....oh wait.
Things could move significantly just on anticipation, as it did for companies like Axovant and Neurotrope prior to their failed readouts. It'll be a lot harder to contain the stock when intermediate results could be released at any time, and even if investors knew for a fact we wouldn't get them until a set date, the stock isn't going to go from where it is now to where it will be ($50+++) with confirmatory results. A risk / reward analysis will be performed sometime after the patients have been dosed, and the stock will move significantly prior to results. Where it could go from where it is now to $50 ($2.5B market cap) overnight is with a significant upfront cash payment partnership. $500 mill should do it. Heck, Axon reached a $3B market cap ($60 AVXL SP) on the strength of $200 mill in cash and a recycled drug....albeit, with more than a little help from their friends.