Regarding side effects, traditionally we would be looking for elevated cholesterol, elevated blood pressure, long term cardiac risks, things like that. I know it is purported to be selective and less cardiac activating... but how much less, and really what the overall cardiac effect will be, that may take awhile to tease out. Down sides and up sides to that.
Down: will likely require some post marketing surveillance, which will come with costs. It may also require a longer phase 3 period of followup. The FDA won't want docs prescribing to anyone and it being marketed as non-cardiac effects. Because in really there will be very very low cardiac activity, which may still make it unfavorable in the guy who has heart failure and people with other cardiac history. There may also be unknown side effects, given that this is an newer med, the kind of stuff that isn't common enough to be seen in bodybuilding healthy populations routinely, but might show up in large validated extensive trials. Who knows.
The upside: they are pursuing it for the absolute best indication possible to offset all the above. I have accepted for years that we generally believe a hip fracture that isn't due to obvious severe trauma comes with a 50% mortality rate roughly at 2 years. I.e. 1/2 people who are old and debilitated enough to fall, and brittle enough to break a hip in the process, will die. If we show decent results on efficacy, the FDA would likely accept a much higher degree of risk in letting this get to market a bit faster, and letting more of the data collection happen over time after market for the bean counters. If 1/2 will be dead in 2 years, and it works, it would be technically unethical to delay a drug two years to market for those type of data collections.
That being said, it will put the FDA in a tough spot to put this out, have it not be a controlled substance, and have people possibly start using it off label, let alone to let them market it as less cardiac risk in the first place before all the followup stuff... like echocardiogram heart type stuff like we see in diet drugs some day.
A second point. Just because it will be supposedly low heart risk, still not the same as no risk. You wouldn't want a 25 year old weight lifter getting this and having prolonged exposure without knowing what that risk is. So there will be a dance with the FDA, and bashers will come out of the woodwork trying to collect as much of the few shares that there are by yelling about all of the above. Which is why I brought it up now. Because it will mean nothing. This drug, if effective and lower risk (how low... see above?), would fill a huge hole... people sick enough to need to build muscle mass, with low long term side effects and tolerability. We are talking about HIV patients, genetic muscle wasting syndromes, people AT risk for fractures who are 80 pounds and elderly sitting in a nursing home bed with a history of pathological fractures (nobody is even thinking about that yet... but that would be the true gold mine. Existing Bisohosphonates for brittle bones aren't the most tolerated meds in the world, FYI).
Would be good to know if bodybuilders who use this have had trouble with worsening blood pressure or cholesterol or other heart rhythm/heart stuff.
Regarding the warrants...
I think anything below .40 is a steal, and have been comfortable buying them as high as .50 in the past year. I added about 60K in the .20's a few weeks back.
I plan to unload some during the middle of the June/July run up (not much though), and again during the middle of the lipid drug run up.
Whoever holds most of these warrants wasn't comfortable holding them all a few weeks ago before the conference wall and updates. I doubt they will be comfortable holding them all through other upcoming major events, so I expect the price on them to actually dip before news each time, if pattern holds, hence a early to mid run up sell. Somebody is trying to push the price down in the past week, feebly so, because there just isn't anyone selling them, you can't spook such a small group of people with those games.
The warrants are not liquid at all. I could care less though. They are really all or nothing for me, and if I can unload 20% of what I hold over both run ups, it will be gravy on top. As long as the stock price hits 2.00 at some point, I know I could at least exercise the warrant and trade out, which is fine. Long term, i love them. It's a 3 to 1 paying scenario at the current stock price. 1.40 a share, .50 a warrant, 3x your money if it goes over 2.00.
If and when we see 3.00 range, I will begin selling the warrants if there is anyone willing to pay .10 of premium or more on them, and use the capital generated to begin exercising the warrants, and then sell 50% of what I hold in the regular Stock with the increased liquidity. The big question is when we would see 3.00.
If the data in June/July is a big win, I will likely sell 10-20% or exercise into it and sell, and hold long term. My gut feeling is that Ligand will add more shares if the data is good. If we ever get close to 5.00, the stock will fly, as institutions will be able to start entering the picture.
Enjoy the novel. I'm long and strong in this, and I feel that the gamble at this point is any easy decision to make for me. I'm not an expert in any of this stuff, and I don't know anything extra, but everything I have seen reassures me they are doing this right and very unlikely to dilute us if they hit gold. They would only be harming themselves and ligand if they dilute.
Happy to answer other questions.
Best of luck to all.
Waffles out.