Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Yes, I do.
Here's some info from an introductory paragraph:
As part of our research efforts to use carbon monoxide
as a feedstock for the preparation of synthetically useful
intermediates,6 we recently reported the carbonylative ring
expansion of 2-substituted oxazolines to oxazinones7,8 and
hydroformylation of 2-oxazolines to N-acylated aminoaldehydes.
9 Based on these findings we proposed that the
in situ generation of anaminoaldehydemoiety followed by
cyclization could produce the desired ampakine targets or
synthetic precursors shown in Scheme 1. This methodologywould
be very atomeconomical, as opposed to current
synthetic routes which use hard-to-obtain precursors,5
suffer from low yields,10 or require stoichiometric,11
toxic,12 or expensive13 reagents. In this report we describe
a domino reaction14 that readily yields the desired ampakine
framework while using simple starting materials and
Co2(CO)8 as an inexpensive precatalyst.
In conclusion, we have developed an atom economical
route to an important ampakine framework via hydroformylation
of dihydrooxazines.Our methodology provides
quick access to the pharmaceutically interesting compound
CX-614 (Table 2, entry 9) and to a central building block
for the synthesis of 3-substituted-[1,2,3]-benzotriazinones
(Table 2, entry 5). In both cases, the modular nature of the
starting materials allows for the synthesis of a wide range of
derivatives.
A report describes a highly efficient method for synthesizing ampakines:
A Catalytic Route to Ampakines and
Their Derivatives
Michael Mulzer and Geoffrey W. Coates*
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Baker Laboratory, Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York 14853-1301, United States
gc39@cornell.edu
Received January 13, 2011
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ol200111a
I'd be curious to know the extent to which this guts corx's IP, and erodes what's left of their leverage.
On the bright side, those of us with a chem background can cook some up for ourselves now.
Raise cash to do what? Even with devastating dilution, they can't raise the funds they need to advance with ADHD.
The only hope here is that they close a meaningful deal.
Anyone holding a substantial position in corx alternates between 2 questions:
1. Why did I buy this stock?
2. Why don't I sell this stock?
The answer to both is: anyone stupid enough to buy this stock is also too stupid to sell it. Myself first and foremost.
sorry I missed that
Straight talk that may get him fired:
Of course, not everyone shares Suderman's optimism. Dr. Rudolf Mueller, director of medicinal chemistry at Cortex Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, Calif., saw his company let go half of its staff in March 2009, leaving it with only 13 employees. Mueller hopes that there will be no need for additional layoffs in the coming year, but his confidence has understandably been shaken. However, if Cortex is able to raise money through the sale of some of its patents, it may be able to begin hiring again. But the sale of the patents needs to happen quickly and for the right price.
"Right now I'm not so confident," he says. "I wish I could be more confident, but it looks shaky. When you see how many people were let go by the big pharma companies, it's not so positive. Most of the research science is gone, and we have only a couple of researchers left in order to save money. If we get more money, we will definitely hire people. But that's unclear. It really depends on how things go in the near future. We just need to raise more money to start everything up again."
For another take on problems relating to the development of new treatments, a nice white paper from an interesting advocacy group:
http://fastercures.org/documents/file/Valley%20of%20Death%20-%20Translational%20Research%281%29.pdf
My hunch is that they are holding off on a CC because they are in substantive negotiations regarding some kind of larger deal involving more than one indication. I think this is also why they delayed announcement of the SA results.
They are trying to avoid any inadvertent slip that could compromise negotiations, which makes a CC challenging and risky.
To make sense of corx, I think we have to pay attention to what they're not doing. If they weren't in negotiations, they would at least be trying to create the impression of forward movement, but they're not. They've said nothing about the IND, nothing about other potential indications, nothing about nothing. The only thing we do know is that they've made use of a company to facilitate DD, which is consistent with the idea that most or all of their effort is on getting some kind of deal done, and not on planning or carrying out (pre)clinical trials.
What I want to know is:
a. Why did they sit on the SA results? To argue that the delay was warranted by the complexity of the data requires that computations were carried out on an abacus.
b. Why, after presenting the result of the trial in a brief summary, did the company fall completely silent? Is the approach here to downplay the trial to facilitate reacquisition of RD rights?
What is the underlying strategy here?
One would think the SA trial was a failure
My experience is that when I understand my own stupidity, it doesn't make me smarter; the interval between when I do something stupid and realize it is the time it takes me to become aware of my own stupidity. It's a time constant. It's relatively long because I'm a f***ing idiot.
Every morning when I check this site, the question I ask myself is "Still nothing?", and the answer always is "Still nothing."
I regret the time I waste here. It is incomprehensible to me that people would follow this for entertainment.
I've thought about that too, but for the life of me can't come up with a reason related to negotiations for which the data's release would have been postponed.
The fact that I can't think of a reason doesn't mean much though.
Even if I wanted to sell, I'd have to dribble it out, so for the time being I wait. If you and meixatech are right, we'll know soon enough.
To beat a dead horse here one more time, the top of line results of CX1739 involved 4 variables. A good statistician could have pulled those results out in an afternoon. The parameters that were looked at were obvious ones, and would have been defined ahead of time as a short list of outcome variables to extract. Thus the notion that intensive post-hoc analysis allowed world-class statisticians to extract some counter-intuitive signal seems ridiculous.
There may have been plenty of other analyses that needed to be explored, but these top-of-line results could have been released in September, within a week of the last patient's data being logged. We'd be in a better situation now if they had presented the top-of-line findings promptly, as they were supposed to.
My take on this: they blundered into the wrong indication, completely mishandled communications about why the trial, which was to take 6 months ended up taking 2 years, and then appeared to sit on the trial outcome for 4 months.
Corx management has demonstrated a lack of strategic vision, ethics and competence. Bad luck has little to do with our predicament.
I need to get out of this stupid stock. At this point, I find it impossible to realistically see a path to profitability for this company because the people running it completely lack judgement.
My difficulty is to accept that I have wiped out a substantial part of my savings, and move on. This is emotionally very difficult.
The interesting thing is that now, I have absolutely no idea what corx is going to do next.
Let's see if the delayed IND is finally filed, with a partner taking on part of the cost of the trials (otherwise I don't think it is doable).
The longer this drags on, the lower the value of the IP. Even the newer compounds are becoming less interesting.
This is a depressing,disheartening, and above all boring story.
buy @ 0.16, sell now.
The most plausible course of action IMO is to focus on the patient population already chronically using opioids to manage pain. This patient population has big problems with SA, and because of the sedative effect of the opioids, probably will fall asleep anyway.
If corx could sign a deal to develop an opioid-ampakine combo for pain management, which dramatically reduces morbidity / mortality due to SA and/or RD, they'd have a very nice payday.
A couple of things:
People who suffer from ADHD also tend to suffer from SA, so insofar as ampakines blunt SA, there may be a 2-pathway effect on ADHD: directly, via enhanced signalling efficiency at the cortical level, and indirectly, via a reduction of SA-induced sleep disruption, which likely contributes to the ADHD.
The sense I get is that they used a high dose here, to increase the probability of seeing anything at all. A lower dose may have comparable effects on SA, without disrupting sleep as much.
All this is academic. It's not clear at all to me that there is anyone out there willing to risk the time and expense of a full-blown clinical trial for a condition this tricky, in this regulatory environment, regardless of the size of the patient pool.
I'm glad it's done, but the data aren't that great. First, less than half of the subjects who got the drug showed improvement in either AHT or AHI, and there was an improvement in blood gas variables (it's unclear if these numbers are for everybody or for a subgroup).
The problem here is that the subjects who took the drug slept less. This is the most robust finding of the study (p<0.001).
What we have here is a drug that marginally reduces apnea, but robustly reduces sleep, a problem that I foresaw at the very start of this adventure.
I hope that the market reacts favorably. Whatever the reaction, I am glad this is behind us. I am curious about whether others think these results are consistent with a partnerable indication.
corx is a plane with fantastic aerodynamics, but no engine.
cortex has a wikipedia entry. My evil side wants to turn it into a Wailing Wall to the boredom, frustration, and futility of investing in, and following this misbegotten company.
Now that we're reaching the end of Jan, any bets on when ANYthing happens here? My most pessimistic guesses are all out the window at this date.
ADHD and SA may have been dragged on because of deal negotiations; it doesn't follow from that that the deal will be closed. Just because they went all-in doesn't mean they necessarily will win.
Where did you find this? Who is the placement agentfor this transaction?
A northward pop is going to be tamped by people seeking to liquidate large chunks of cheap shares. They're going to have to walk on water to push this thing above $0.30
It's possible that ShareVault only has one client, corx. If it doesn't, it would seem to me that ShareVault would want the testimonial of practically anybody else, given the nonexistence of corx's successes.
Barring imminent good news, putting corx's testimonial on their website is like a tattoo parlor putting a misspelled tattoo in its storefront window. Why would anyone want to do business with ShareVault based on corx's brilliant partnership successes?
I still see this as evidence that something is in the works in the very near future.
I'm also not sure why you write with such confidence "Sharevault wouldn't know one way or the other." Neither you nor I know what ShareVault knows. ShareVault at least knows who is using its service to find out about corx. Although knowledge about imminent deals would constitute insider information, I can't rule out the possibility of knowledge at least about likelihoods, purely because it's not supposed to happen. It's not supposed to happen that a company sits on a material event, and we've seen that happen.
Here's an interesting tidbit:
A company dedicated to facilitating the due dilligence for pharmaceutical partnerships has a newly-testimonial from none other than... Mark Varney:
"ShareVault's focus on speed helps us accelerate the due diligence process. Some of our clinical trial results documents contain thousands of pages, yet our users can open them instantly from ShareVault.".
– Mark Varney
CEO
Cortex Pharmaceuticals
In my morbid obsession with this misbegotten company, I often do searches for anything on the net pertaining to cortex pharmaceuticals that has appeared in the last 24 hours, so I know this is new.
The fact that ShareVault is posting his testimonial means that corx is using the service, and strongly suggests that a splashy deal is imminent. Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense for ShareVault to be trumpeting a penny stock.
Here's the link:
http://www.pandesa.com/solutions/pharmalicensing.htm
Years ago, there were some slides pertaining to the high-impact work on Parkinsons, and the data were jaw-dropping. It was one of the reasons that I got into this stock.
I had an informal discussion at the SFN meeting with someone who knew a fair amount about the topic, and this person indicated that the interesting feature of the high impacts -- BDNF upregulation -- was also seen to a lesser extent in the low-impacts. This means that even if the high impacts end up being unsuitable due to their seizure-inducing properties, low-impacts may nonetheless be able to provide disease reversal by a slower BDNF upregulation.
All this to say that the long-term promise of ampakines isn't the problem for corx. It's the short- and medium-term problem of undercapitalization that appears almost insurmountable.
Years ago, there were some slides pertaining to the high-impact work on Parkinsons, and the data were jaw-dropping. It was one of the reasons that I got into this stock.
I had an informal discussion at the SFN meeting with someone who knew a fair amount about the topic, and this person indicated that the interesting feature of the high impacts -- BDNF upregulation -- was also seen to a lesser extent in the low-impacts. This means that even if the high impacts end up being unsuitable due to their seizure-inducing properties, low-impacts may nonetheless be able to provide disease reversal by a slower BDNF upregulation.
All this to say that the long-term promise of ampakines isn't the problem for corx. It's the short- and medium-term problem of undercapitalization that appears almost insurmountable.
Maybe the private equity partner is acting as an intermediary to a BP. They private equity is financing the trial, but the trial is being designed by the BP.
This mechanism would allow the BP to off-load the risk of financing the ADHD trial to the private equity partner, in exchange for any eventual profits. Similarly, corx would give up some of its eventual royalties for being provided with the funds to move the trial forward.
Oh boy, here we go again... I'm still waiting for the palestinian women to show up.
And the "loss of benefit" would be....? "harm" is.....?
Positive data, but a potential partner or acquirer who has requested--and granted, for whatever relationship reasons--a 'quiet period' for assessing Cortex's programs before concluding DD and signing a term sheet.
Positive data, but wanting to keep it quiet due to some aspect of the RD assets they'd like to get back.
Yes, the delay in releasing the SA results is very very strange
Varney et al must have a very good reason for doing so
These back-channel exchanges with Varney are laughable. We don't need bromides and generalities about the company or the sector.
Corx management needs to provide PUBLIC disclosure of the SA trial results. If the data were complete in September/October, the data are now analyzed. To pretend otherwise is an insult to the intelligence of the small number of people who are still interested in this company.
This disclosure isn't optional. If the data are bad, and more patients had to be enrolled to complete the trial design, then this should be disclosed.
The notion that transparency about these issues would be more damaging to corx's prospects than this illegal withholding of trial results is both stupid and beside the point. There is no tactical or strategic justification for violating core fiduciary obligations of corporations to their shareholders.
They're negotiating a deal. The SA results are crap, corx doesn't want to see the share-price slide during negotiations, and is putting up a "data analysis" smokescreen. No way no how it takes this long to analyze n=20.
Being malcontent is a bad option, because it doesn't improve things anyway.
A possibility re: the delay is that the treatment created other respiratory anomalies, such as periodic breathing, which might give rise to more frequent, but shorter apneas. This is a possible outcome if loop gain were increased, which is what I'd expect from upregulation of glutamatergic transmission.
I don't get what you're writing. Is it your impression that the private investors are demanding a say in the ADHD trial design, or that the amount of money they foresee getting will determine the trial design? If it's the latter, that sounds penny-wise, pound-foolish. At this stage in the game, trying to establish efficacy of their lead compound in what is effectively their last real chance at viability on the cheap is completely stupid.
JD I am sorry that you are taking heat for your posts. I appreciate your willingness to share what you learn, even if what you are gleaning has a certain amount of uncertainty around it.
I very much hope that you are right, and that we get some good news soon. We have all been beaten over the head for our enthusiasm about this company. As a result, when others dare to be optimistic about this company, it is like rubbing salt in a wound: I feel like I really fell for all that once. Despite all the disappointment I've been through, it is nonetheless possible that things can get better here. The IP is good.
2010 or 2011? My prediction is that something is going to happen, sooner or later, or not. I'm feeling pretty confident about that.
It's actually more complicated.
a. Some people think the data are still being analyzed because corx is confident that there's some kind of signal that needs to be pulled out.
b. Some people think that they've got nothing, and are trying to figure out the bail-out procedure.
c. Some people think that corx is sitting on the result because of its potential impact on a big outlicencing / buyout deal.
Some of the posts seem to have some info supporting a.
a. could still lead to b.
Neither a. nor b. are incompatible with c.