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Thanks I appreciate it.
Sorry I forgot to address the last part of your post.
David has a huge influence on the scientific direction of Ino. He is not just on the scientific board, but the co founder of the company as well.
David invented the Syncon system, and most of the vaccines that are being worked on now.
Joseph has a very large amount of input in the science area as well. He has published over 100 papers on DNA vaccines and is one of the early pioneers in the field. However, most of his time is spend running Inovio, while David spends much of his time in the lab.
David, like Joseph, is exceptionally nice and well spoken. You would hardly know they are two of the smarted people on earth given their polite and well spoken behavior. Joseph and David are very good friends and talk on the phone very often. I spoke to David on the phone while I was at the office in Philly in Feb. I had dinner with him in 2007 right after he invented the consensus flu vaccine, and he was very excited about it. He spend about an hour explaining how it worked to me. I even was able to explain it correctly for a while after word. Unfortunately, it is way above my non science background and I forgot the really important details. I have not seen him in about 3 years though.
I can tell you that David is much more involved in Ino then he normally is in a company. I do not believe he actually founded any of the other companies he is involved in. Investors are very lucky David is so involved in this company.
I do not know much about Advaxis. I do not know if David is on the scientific board or not. He is an adviser to many companies, so it is entirely possible.
I do not understand any negative views Ino investors may have about Advaxis. Sorry I cannot help you there.
VGX was founded by Joseph and David. VGX took over Inovio back in 2007-8. INO was the public entity, VGX private, so they kept the INO company name. All top level management positions were filled by VGX employees.
I hope that clears the VGX question up for you. You can see more information on that in my interviews with Joseph. I think in the next two interviews we discuss it in some detail.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperEverywhereman
Well I did not follow ino back then. But we had conversations about why they were at that price and never could really answer it.
Markets were different then. They had drug candidates and early electropoation. I would say mostly hype.
Inovio provided no funding to ChronTech and were not involved in the trial design. I find the trial design very odd too. It seems to be trying to save a few dollars. Very strange. I would love to know the company explanation.
Thanks for the nice reply.
Yes what you say is true. This time negotiating is no different. It could fall apart completely. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen negotiations, most never come to anything.
Why is it taking so long? Well from the limited exposure I have had to such negotiations (and yes I have had some) they are just darn complex. People start talking long before they are ready to start doing. Many large companies use negotiations to get a look at the IP a smaller company has, often hoping the smaller company falls on hard times or goes out of business later. It is a common tactic.
Yes Joseph thinks he has disruptive technology. Just look at the quantity of vaccines INO has in trials now. That is a product of the SynCon system. Do you really doubt that sometime one of those vaccines will make it through trials and to market? Maybe that happens after INO is dead and gone, but I do not think so.
Electropoation is much like having a patent on the syringe. In DNA plasmids it is currently THE delivery system. That could change, but for now it is. So even if all of INO drugs fail, electropoation could still be worth a bundle for the company. Making a small fee on every flu shot sounds pretty appealing to me, what about you? Even if that vaccine is not an INO product.
I hope that helps...
Thanks for the reply.
I can understand your feeling. I do not share it. Good luck and keep following along. Hopefully he will be able to rekindle your faith soon.
Thanks for the reply.
I did not mention Joseph buying today. I think he just gave us a PUT. But it does mean something. He is not throwing good money after bad. But I do realize that management is in a position to profit from such acts sometimes.
VGX has never reverse split, neither has Inovio under J Kim. So it may be common for many companies, but not common for Ino and this management team.
You are correct it could still happen. I do believe it would happen after much of what I suggested.
I do not blame you for waiting. I often sell parts of my position and wait to buy back in myself. Heck I dumped 3000 shares on Monday, cause I thought ChronTech would not be good news, and after my 60k buy in Feb. I need some cash so I took it.
I rarely fail to mention in my posts how risky biotech is. A quote I often say when I am at INO is "Ony the really smart or the really stupid invest in biotech, and I do not know which I am yet."
I think you have a good handle on the risks, and are making good informed decisions.
I started posting here only to counter the crazy rumors and misinformation on INO. People know I am close to the company and a good cheerleader. I am in no way a pumper.
Thomas thanks for a good post. I do want to clarify a few things.
When you say they will drop the Hep C trial, are you referring to ChronTech or Ino? I think ChronTech will most likely drop the trial, because I cannot think of where they will get money from...
Ino is currently negotiating with big pharma for a partnership they hope to close by June. It is one of the major reasons for the last dilution.
While Ino does keep a fair R&D budget, they can easily coast for a while in that area, as they have a lot going on already. Also, most of the R&D is done by David Weiner and U Penn and is mostly covered by the university. So while their innovation is quite high, the R&D is quite low.
Using the ChronTech failure as a reason to proclaim Ino is no longer a viable business and will now fail is just plain silly.
Saying electroporation is the only revenue for the company is not accurate either. The company often has much higer revenue from its manufacturing drugs for other companies to use in their phase 1 and 2 trials. None of the revenue the company generates is very much right now. Both areas could be expanded.
I will start speculating now to address the multiple ways Ino has to get more money if needed.
Ino can easily license its electropoation technology to a major pharma. Ino can easily license or sell any of its current vaccines in development to another company.
Ino has the SynCon system which is what allows it to develop its many vaccines at such a rapid pace. It is entirely possible to licnese that platform to other companies for development or simple use.
I know the company has had multiple offers from multiple companies to do just that.
The company has other means to access non dilutive financing that few here seem to know about. The company has accessed such financing on multiple occasions, and it could if needed access that again. I am being deliberatly vage in this answer.
In a really dire situation, the compan could sell SynCon and or Cellectra, and the electroporation patent portfolio. Either property would be worth much more than the current market cap of the company. Again, I know the company has been approached in the past about such things.
That is just a quick off the top group of ideas. I know from the past that Joseph often comes up with ways that I simply cannot fathom until he does it.
The company could also apply for a line of credit like most companies have. Ino does not. Which is rare and in my opnion good.
Finally, I am glad you point out how tough biotech is. Too few people are saying that here. This is a very tough business. Be ware of investing in BioTech!!!!
Well, Elon Musk is quite rude, and Joseph is a nice as a person as you could ever meet....
They are both quite brilliant, and even though I did not like Elon when I met him, I am a total fan of his vision and management.
I can say that Joseph is more cutting edge. Elon got rich on a very simple idea he did very well. Joseph did it by making a very hard idea that he helped develop and doing it very well, even though it is no where near finished yet.
Elon as gone hog wild now a days, doing maga cutting edge stuff. I love his space stuff, I am on the fence on Tesla, the small one is worthless in my opnion, but I will look at an S one day.
Sorry to see the fall today. It seems way over done to me, but I never thought this should have too much weight any how. The that that bothers me is we are not dealing with rational people on such events.
I had little faith in ChronTech, I really do not know why anyone had a lot. I am disappointed that Hep C will not have this vaccine killing it any time soon.
I have many questions. It looks like they LOWERED the dosing for phase 2. What the heck? Did anyone else read it that way? I cannot imagine why.
Why was the trial not done using Cellectra? I have to say, the differences are small between devices, but why not the top newest device?
Frankly when you look at these two aspects it almost seems they designed it to fail. Much of this may be ChronTechs finances dictating they cut all the corners they can. I just do not know, but I would like to.
Will ChronTech survive this or will they pack up and go home?
As for Inovio, well they are just dandy. We now see that Joseph brillantly manuvered again by doing the dilution when he did. He raised money at a much higher level then he may have been able to had he waited for these results. Great hedging. For those of you that think INO could have money issues, Joseph has been thinking that every day. He is way ahead and frankly amazing at his ability to keep it flowing. I still wish we were here discussing the way it worked so well though...
Well the study was not divided into electroporated and not, so it may be very difficult to tell anything.
I have no idea if they did any type of uptake study, or how you would tell it is any better by it. Of couse I noted that several days ago, so no suprise.
I really wish it had been good news. The people with Hep C would have been well served. As it is, they now have to construct another phase 2 and do it over, or simply give up. I wonder what their decision will be.
ChronTech news is out.
It seems disappointing to me. I have no idea how this has anything to do with INO, but I know people will react.
http://chrontech.se/english/news/press_releases?releaseid=758513
Joseph Kim Intervews
My part two interview is up or you can watch them all at
No idea on that one. I did not ask. I asked a specific question about David.
I would not inquire on that subject, I do not want to be party to insider information and create sec issues for either of us. We have a long term agreement to avoid such things. If I behaved in such a way I would quickly find my questions no longer answered.
Just to clarify. I checked with Joseph today, David W had no involvement in Advisys until VGX considered buying it. He was not involved in the founding, nor was any of his technology involved in the company. Neither was Joseph.
What was happening is people (including the press) not doing their homework properly. They confused Advisys with VGX.
Who was it that said they got an email from ChronTech saying the date would be released to day? It is after 7 pm in Norway so I don't think it is coming...
You see this is what I was concerned about. ChronTech dragging INO down.
Ino is an investor in the vaccine at this point. They own more than most people, but just like ChronTech investors, they have to wait, and know little more than they do.
Just to clarify, the Cellectra system was developed off of the Advisys platform. INO brought much needed patent positions, but the Cellectra system was superior, which we already knew in advance. I do not know if any INO innovations were incorporated into the Cellectra system. I think much of the Piezo technology came driectly from INO. Certainly the manufacturing facility (in San Diego) that INO used is still currently used by the company. If you want more detail on such things, I can follow up for you.
As you can see from the interviews, VGX was first involved in small molecule drugs. In 2003 Joseph and I were at my house discusing posible failure of the VPR based drugs, and he said that if it failed, he would turn the company in to a DNA vaccine company. When he changed the direction of the company, yes he knew he needed a better delivey system. But many DNA companies use other delivery systems other than electroporation.
With research he determined that he wanted to use electroporation was the best method. That is one reason the company followed INO from early on. The Advisys system was superior to INO system, which turned out well since we were able to aquire it cheap.
I really know little about INO before VGX aquired it, as it was not of very much intrest to me or VGX at the time. Keep in mind I was an invester and sometimes a partner, but never involved in management at VGX/Inovio. The patent position of INO was superior to VGX and was the major driver for the takeover. In later inkterview clips, you will hear Joseph discuss this.
I think you have a good position, just be prepared for all of the the ups and downs that biotech companies have. This is not an invetment for the faint of heart.
Something you may want to consider, VGX Animal Health will be raising more capital in the next few months. If you all are buying positions that large, you may want to look at privte equity, but these are pretty long term. Animal health is a much shorter time frame to market than human. About 2 to 3 years.
Let me walk back saying that David did not co-found. Truly I do not know as I have never spoken with him about it. David has so much he is involved in, it would be hard for me to say that. I do know that Joseph was in no way involved in the founding of Advisys. I will find out for sure about David. But I think Joseph would have mentioned it in the interview if David had. I also think David's involvment would have been mentioned during the take over period and when we split the company and made part of it in to VGX Animal Health.
Part 2 of my interview with J. Kim is out now here is the link if you care to view it.
Thanks
Tom
Yes I do, I was involved in the transaction when VGX took over the company. Advisys was actually started by a Texas Oil billionaire, and wound up distressed after his death and the family did not know what to do with it. Allowing VGX to purchase it for pennies on the dollar. No matter what link you found, I gave you a link to my interview with J. Kim and I was involved in the transaction, so why insist that J. Kim started it? Joseph does not do animal medicine, neither does David. That should have been your first clue that they did not start Advisys.
Part 2 of my interview with Joseph goes over the Advisys take over, since I was going to release it tomorrow, I will just go ahead and give you the link tonight.
I think it is great that you want to educate people about the history of INO-VGX.
Advisys was NOT founded by J. Kim and David Weiner. The beginning of the current INO story is in VGX which was founded by J. Kim and D. Weiner in 2001, though it could have been 2002. Advisys was bought by VGX in 2006 (I may be off a year on that) and was an Animal health company started out of Baylor. One of the original founders still works for VGX animal health to this day.
You may want to watch my interview with J. Kim, we discuss how VGX was founded. As I release new parts of the interview weekly Joseph and I will discuss the genisis of the company and its many take overs.
You can see part 1 of the interview here:
You r welcome. That is what I have been concerned about. People confusing ChronTech and Ino, assets to ip.
Stock that was only part of the story. That was the date that VGX and Joseph Kim took over Inovio and the new combined entity started trading. Which was the real reason for the move.3
I am not sure which IP you are referring to. The ChronVac is now about 75-80 % owned by ChronTech. Ino ownes the rest.
ChronTech has licensed the use of Inos electroporation for the trial. It is a license, not in any way an ownership position.
That is the only IP that Ino has involved and Inovio owns it...
I do not have any more information on the details beyond that. I can say that Ino is in no way interested in selling its IP around electropoation, but as Joseph says, "everything is for sale for the right price."
I hope this helps. Mostly I consider ChronTech a non issue myself. I hope they are successful, but it has little bearing on Ino in any material way. I think it is going to effect the stock price though, and that disturbs me. The science on the uptake advantages of electropoation is very well etablished. Any good result using it is a big plus though.
The whole ChronTech thing is just a bit misunderstandng but people that didn't read the press release correctly. I have directly questioned a few honest people spreading the ChronTech rumors, and some referenced the press release announcing the deal, and thought they had heard it mentioned by management in conversation, or in articles in passing. Obviously they could not produce these. And more importantly, I had a long discussion with Joseph and company on Feb 13 about just that before my interview with Joseph later that day. No such interviews or articles exist. Then pumpers exaggerated the whole rumor and expanded it creating mass confusion. I am sure that dumpers are also using the ChronTech situation to claim Ino does not own its IP and or it sold it to ChronTech.
If you really think about that, it is crazy on its face. Why would INO sell one of the cornerstones of its IP portfolio. Ino will gladly license Syncon constructs, and even vaccines and other drugs, but they have no desire to sell SynCon, as it is the system used to make the many different dna vaccines they develop.
In the later part of my interview with Joseph you will hear him elaborate on the main parts that support Inovo. That part of the interview will be out in a few weeks. I am releasing about 15 min a week.
No I really do not. It is easy to find by going to clinicaltrials.gov and looking at the stated goals and end points.
I know if it does not meet the trial end points, it simply is not a succes. There could be data in there that could make a drug useful for a differnt use or even with different stated end points.
There are many around these boards that know the science much better than I. I am not a scientist in any way, and I never graduated from college either.
Well you know I can set up a pay pal acct for all of you that want to......
Thanks you are too kind.
Let me add this. I consider Biotech the most risky investment you can make. Let me give you a quote "Only really smart or really stupid people invest in Biotech, and I don't know which I am yet"
Everyone should be very careful. It has been stated it is "as difficult to make a new drug successful as it is to land a man on the moon." I do not know who said that but I heard it a conference. Do not get hung up on a drug, but on the team of people bringing that drug to market. Any drug can fail. But we all know that certain people tend to be more successful than others.
I love the biotech industry, but as a business it is normally a terrible idea. Trading is tends to be a much better idea.
Thanks for asking. I hope this answer helps…
1. What do you believe will be the driver for Inovio to be finally taken seriously from an investment/rising share price standpoint?
There are two major events that will cause that to happen, and it may take both to really move the bar.
First good Phase 2 trial data for any of the ongoing trilals will really move the bar.
The second is a good partnership with a major Pharma.
The way I always think of it is good data could run the stock to 1.50 to 2.00 then a follow on with a major Pharma could double it. This is just me thinking, not crunching numbers. It is hard to do that really on just phase 2 and Pharma partnership. The partnership will give some real numbers, and you can make some projections from that when it happens.
Ino is quite well respected in many small institutions and in the science community it is truly very respected as is Joseph and David.
2. What is your timeframe for Inovio's share price to rise significantly? You have had your money tied up for a very long time with little appreciation. I hope we are not talking about another 13 years...
Investing in private equity is more a marriage then an investment. So the time frame is not a problem from that stand point. Now that the company is public, the time frames I am willing and able to wait get much shorter.
I look at events; I do not expect any major changes without them. So we look at the Phase results and when they come out. So in the next few months we see Phase 2 results, and Ino is trying to have a major Pharma deal closed by June. So if everything comes up roses, you could easily be sitting on $5 by July. I am concerned about ChronTech data bringing down Ino price if it is negative. Especially since Ino has little to do with the drug.
Much of my money has been tied up, but not with little appreciation. I have made several million dollars off of my Ino so far, but some of that is due to being involved in the bridge financing of their Korean entity. I just last week exercised some warrants from 2003 for 2.5 cents, and I am obviously positive on those. If you add up the total investment and warrants I am sitting about even on my Inovio investment. I am way profitable (500% in 6 months) on my Korean bridge financing. I also invested in VGX animal health which can be considered negative for now. The company will start new private capital raises for animal health soon, so that should start moving new drug approval forward for GHRH which will help a lot there. So over all Joseph has taken great care of his long term share holders. My interview with him covers much of this in some detail. The next installment will be released on Monday.
3. In a perfect world scenario, in your estimation, what do you realistically expect for returns in the next 1, 3, and 5 year time frames?
Well if it is perfect, that means good phase data on ChronTech and 2 INO drugs in the next 3 to 5 months and a good partnership deal with big Pharma. You could easily see $10 a share then. Lets say there is a pull back to $7 then you would see an easy $10 end of the year. If more great news happens, 15-20 without the hype factor that can do crazy things.
I think a more honest assessment is we get good and bad new over the year. Just 1 good phase 2 with the drug continuing in to phase 3 and a good Pharma deal I think would put the stock at $3 to $7 for the year. That is as far out as I normally think.
If you continue that out to your other time frames, you can get $10-$12 in year three, $19 to $25 in year 5, but again this is without any of the hype that would have to be present and push it higher. The truth is this is an educated guess.
The only drug I have a better feeling about in Phase trials is the flu vaccine. There are some reasons that I cannot relate, that make me believe it has a better chance of success than any normal drug of success. HIV I like better than the normal 99% chance of failure as well.
The most important thing I can say here is that Joseph is simply awesome. He is both business savvy and knows the science better than almost everyone in the world. He created much of it himself. David is amazing too. This team drives the company, and the rest of the team is world class, and better than most major pharmas have.
The science is top notch. I have talked to researchers at the NIH personally about both Joseph and David, and the company’s technology. I have attended biotech conferences and vaccine conferences (Singapore 2009, Washington DC 2009-2010) and I have discussed the company and its founders with many top notch scientists and biotech CEOs from the world over. I have never heard a negative comment about the company.
I was in Korea 7 times in 6 months during the Korean take over of Dong Il fabric (this became VGXI) and had similar experiences with scientists and business people there. Not to mention government people at the cabinet level.
I have seen Joseph turn the company from what should have been failure to a viable international company with an animal health division.
I have addressed this in multiple postings on this board today....
The shares allow a major investment to happen without that invester taking over control.
For example; If Ino negotiates with a major pharma to license and or partner via payments and equity in Ino, and the deal was for 50 million, half in cash to the company, and getting an proportional ownership stake in the company. Basicly the pharma would wind up in control of INO. So the board issues new shares for their equity stake, there by not letting them have defacto control
The other possiblity is a Poion Pill.
This prevents a hostile take over from happening by allowing the board enough stock issuing power to dilute the entity attempting the take over to a non controling position.
This is a common defense in small companies that have something that is worth owning. This prevents potential partners from simply taking the whole company at a lower cost than one part is worth. If a vaccine gets great news, it could easily become worth more than the entire market cap of Inovio.
While I have had no current discussions with management about this, Joseph and I had many such discussions back when VGX/Inovio was private about how to keep the company from being taking over if we went public and had good news. You can searh Poison Pill on investment web sites to get it explained better than I did...
Leo, do you want me to post my reply in public? If not send me an email address where I can reply. I am not a paid member so I cannot post private replies here.
Unlike most on this board I have been involved with Vgx the company started by j kim and that bought out inovio. I was one of the first 30 investors in vgx, back in 2002 and it was private money. I know the company and people very well. That is why I am qualified to help you know fact from fiction.
Some background and watching my interview w j kim may help you.
Guys, he sounded well reasoned from his first post, why are you all sounding hostile? By the way gord my offer stands.
That was a very well considered and well written post. Though I am long INO I encourage everyone to consider your post.
I do not understand what you mean about being more transparant on future events.
I recently posted a very short note about the dilution, if you have any more questions on that subject I can help you in great detail.
If you have any other questions about INO I can also help you cut through the BS quite well.
Posters on boards can be confusing, I encourge you to do more research directly, searching papers and the like online, even attending bio investing conferences if possible. Also it is easy to see that INO is very well thought of in the science and investing community. You can see the awards the company and CEO have earned and use that is a starting point for seperating fact from fiction.
Cramer only discusses stocks over $3. If he goes under that i think ino has a good chance to be mentioned.
Inovio dilution was done to keep enough money on hand. They want to have 1 year plus on hand. It is critical when negotiating w big companies. They know how much cash you have. If they can wait for you to be desperate to negotiate they will. Ino is negotiating a licensing deal right now. If the data is bad it will make raising capital more difficult. So to hedge, they did a small capital raise 14 mil vs 30 mil of the last offering.
It is a simple hedge and should have been obvious to me, and most of us that follow ino. J kim has a wharton mba and shows remarkable judgement in such matters. If you were sitting in his chair, knowing you wanted more capital, esp with big pharma negotiations ongoing, and uncertain data from trials coming, you do a small raise. If he was negative, you would do a large raise. I doubt collins knew it was on the table. I have much experience with joseph in these situations, and can tell you he would never tell anyone outside of those who need to know.
A real big issue is the extra stock the company wants to be able to issue. Two words poison pill. Now that is mega bullish even though the general chat boards seem major negative..
chrontech vaccine is their technology, NOT inovio's. they r using inovio's electroporation for delivery. The success or failure of the vaccine is mostly on chrontech.
It never was a serious consideration. Just a crazy rumor and wishful thinking from people misreading the press release about chrontech using electroporation.
Ino is not interested in chrontech people. They own none of the company as of 2-13 and the fact that they opted not to pay part of the phase 2 trial and got diluted out their chronvac holding should tell you that. But if that isn't good enough listen to j kim when i interviewed him on 2-13.