alive and kicking
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James Shirley may have some notoriety, but he is not a good scientist from what I have seen.
Nice article. I vaguely recall hearing a seminar about stapled peptides a little while ago, and it sounded interesting.
I was amused by this comment in the article.
<Monoclonal antibodies, for instance, have yet to live up to expectations. >
Hmm, that is news to me.
Oldberkeley,
Thanks for pointing out my shortcomings, bro. :)
It wasn't the first time it has been done, and it sure as hell won't be the last.
zipjet,
Thanks for the clear explanation. No, I didn't think you were putting me down, I just didn't understand what you were saying.
zipjet,
I am a scientist not a lawyer. I read that the Sanofi wanted the judge to block enoxaparin sales, but the judge didn't so sales continued. That is what my point was. Could you explain you comment in regular english?
John,
I don't know what is happening, but this is the second time I agree with you. :) I didn't overlook the bad market conditions, I was just focusing on events specific to MNTA. The bad market is potentially more devastating to companies that don't yet have products on the market, so are dependent on issuing new stock to raise cash. That isn't likely going to be the case for MNTA. I didn't buy MNTA until after approval because of this.
The other point I agree with you is that I have learned that a stock will always move lower or higher than I expected in a short time interval. I have bought MNTA 3 different times after approval, with each one being about $2 a share lower. With the general market decline day after day and headlines like lowest housing sales in 16 years, I can't say when or at what price I expect the drop will stop. In any event, enoxaparin sales continue to bring cash in, so sooner or later this will be recognized by the "efficient" market.
Knowing how "efficient" the market is, it will probably be later.
Also knowing the manipulative Wall Street behavior, if, and hopefully when the lawsuit by Sanofi is dismissed, we will see a significant rise in MNTA stock price, followed quickly by a few "well connected" analysts claiming they "know" that Teva's product will be approved soon, and the price will be driven back down for a while.
mpower and jq1234,
Excellent posts. It doesn't appear that this jmkobers person is looking for honest answers or has honest questions. Obviously the MNTA stock price was driven down by the 3 events, 1) Sanofi lawsuit, 2) the spreading of "information" that some insiders made some sales after approval, and 3) a comment by an analyst that Teva will get approval for their generic.
Numbers 1) and 3) are the most serious is they came to pass. For #1, the judge refused to grant an injunction so the cash is rolling in for MNTA. It is fine with me if the judge takes his sweet time, as long as the ruling ultimately goes against Sanofi. While there are no guarantees, from what I read it certainly looks promising for MNTA. For #3, it smells like the typical rumor spreading that makes people hate Wall Street analysts and Wall Street.
The 2nd point is the old insiders are selling crap that burned shorts like to spread. What, insiders can never sell because whenever they do it must mean they know something bad is coming. One needs to look at how much was sold, what percentage of the total shares held were sold, and why they were sold.
It was a joke. Batteries, charges etc
That is a shocking answer.
It is pretty interesting reading about what the judge said in the hearing about the injunction filed by Sanofi and also how the FDA responded. Both sounded very like they bode well for MNTA. I also liked reading what the Medco had to say about what enoxoparin means to patient costs and to Medco. And yet the mythical "efficient market" keeps driving MNTA down. I wish to thank the "efficient market" for its gift, so I doubled my shares of MNTA today at $16.26. That is pretty easy to do since I didn't have that much (yet).
Oldberkeley,
Oh oh, this must be a sign of the apocalypse, the coming together of losers from GTCB. If I wish to be as charitable as you, then coming together of tenured veterans from the GTCB school of hard knocks. I sold most (2/3) of my GTCB, but only at the $2 post- reverse split price so took a big haircut. Made my second MNTA buy yesterday and am still considering another. Good luck to you and to Flo. Thanks also for the message Flo. Hope you are feeling well.
Vinny
P.S. OB, Are we going to occasionally get the benefit of one of your witty cartoons.
Actions like this are why people hate Wall Street and Wall Street analysts. There is a big increase in puts quickly followed by an announcement of some supposed secret inside information that drives the price to where the puts make a quick buck. A fine example of manipulation by the big boys to TRY and screw the small investor.
I used to get mad, but now I just laugh and use the opportunity. I just bought more shares of MNTA than I did the other day.
Biomaven,
Thanks for the info about MDV3100. I will take a closer look at the early stage data for seizures. As far as the MDVN Alzheimer drug, do you think it as been effectively discarded, or are analysts and MDVN execs still hoping it has life and therefore pinning price estimates and hope (cash expenditures) to it? It does seem like MDVN has a pretty good supply of cash on hand.
jbog,
I don't think anyone should get too upset that it takes longer for a stock to jump after good news than it used to do. I kind of like it now because one gets to see the good data or even approval, then the easy money short term trader boys take their cut and leave. This gives those of us who were unaware or slow to appreciate a drug or company the chance to get in at a lower price. I bought my first batch of MNTA today so I am grateful to the traders for making it cheaper for me. Just another GTCB loser has finally seen the light with MNTA.
Thanks Dew for all your hard work.
Vinny
I was going to say the government never has savings to re-invest, they just spend it one somebody's pet project. :)
<The savings created by the use of cheaper drugs can be reinvested by governments or companies in development of more innovative drugs. >
The biotech values board has pretty impressive collection of informed posters.
Hptaxis posted the NJEM editorial about Provenge and prostate cancer. Figure 1 presented a simplified pathway illustrating some promising targets in hormone refractory prostate cancer therapies. I was doing some basic searches, and I was wondering if anyone knows much about about MDVN and their drug MDV3100. I am intrigued by the fact that it inhibits androgen receptor translocation into the nucleus, so it well downstream in the signal transduction pathway. I saw that MDV3100 was in a phase III trial, but that MDVN suffered greatly recently due to the poor data from its Alzheimer drug. Does anyone have any insights into MDV3100 that they would like to share.
Thanks,
Vinny
Dew,
Granted I haven't followed MNTA that closely, but it appears to me that Sanofi is arguing that the FDA required MNTA to put their drug through too many tests so it shouldn't have been approved. Isn't this the first biosimilar approval? If so, isn't Sanofi saying the FDA didn't follow precedence in the first approval of a biosimilar, when the first approval actually sets the precedent.
Flo,
Haven't seen your post name for a while, so I was wondering how you were doing. Glad to see you made some money today. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Hope you are doing well in other areas. Should have listened to you (and Dew) when you were talking about using MNTA to try and make up for some of the GTCB debacle we both endured.
I changed my yahoo account to dr.vinmantoo@yahoo.com, so send me an email sometime so that I can reacquire your email address.
Dew,
Congratulations to such a nice gain today on MNTA. It is nice to see one of the good guys making some big money!!
pharm,
Thanks for taking the time to come up with some numbers. I guess it depends on how many of the 59 people actually work on the farm. I would like to see management come up with some cash burn numbers since the work force has been reduced by almost 2/3.
Dew, I agree completely. Cox was a horrible CEO. The guy needed to cut costs for a long time but did nothing. The guy needed to secure up front money, but failed to do so. Nice to see that LFB is taking more control over management. The new CEO, William Heiden, is letting go of 30 people in headquarters, and 20 on the farm. He also stated one big goal was to increase the financial performance of ATRYN, which shouldn't be too hard since it has been a disaster.
It will be important to hear exactly how much GTCB will have reduced cash burn by the restructuring, and that we will finally hear about one of the long promised GTCB partnerships being formed and generating UPFRONT cash for a change. Hopefully, it is isn't too little, too late, but at least I am feeling the first little wisps of optimism for the future of GTCB. Of course, unless GTCB inks a partnership with up front cash, this feeling won't last very long.
PRWP.OB is a scam. Management has ZERO data with which to claim increased survival. Claims about increased survival can only be derived from since controlled clinical trials. Davanat has never completed an uncontrolled phase II trial, let alone a controlled clinical trial. Plain and simple, PRWP.OB management is lying. If you want the truth, read what Adam Feuerstein at the street.com recently wrote about PRWP.OB
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10741455/3/biotech-stock-mailbag-aspenbio.html
goodmorningvietnam,
GTCB management has ZERO credibility and has demonstrated a complete lack of business acumen. They needed to cut costs at least 2 years ago, but didn't begin doing so until LFB took significant majority control. To my dismay, they kept Cox on board. GTCB has talked about partnerships for a long time and expanding ATYRN markets with CABG or sepsis trials. However, their HORRENDOUS track record means that no price rise will happen until after deals are signed, sealed and delivered with up front money given, and trials actually start.
Dew,
It only becomes competition AFTER GTCB gets factor VIIa into clinical trials. We will see how many screw ups and delays GTCB has in store before actually getting into trials. Your post refers to yet another company that can get significant cash for producing their drugs, but somehow GTCB can't seem to be able to figure out how to do it.
Dew,
Thanks for the information that I can still post without a premium membership. However, I can't send private emails, which isn't a big deal.
I got a message that my subscription for Ihub is ending tomorrow. I assume it was a free trial since I didn't pay anything. I have no intention of paying anything. I don't know if that means I will have a limited amount of posts or if I might not be able to post here again. If the former, it shouldn't be a problem since the board is dead. If the latter, you will have to contact me at the Yahoo board.
Posters on the yahoo board reported that LFB paid about $2.5 a share for converting to common stock for a total of more than $12 million to GTCB. Now if only they can make a deal before that money runs out in about 6 months. Yeah right, not with Cox still in charge. Why does that incompetent guy still have a management job at GTCB? I could see having him as a janitor so he could do something useful, but how can he still be a CEO??? Good Luck to all.
Vinny
P.S. Has anyone heard from OldBerkeley??
Maybe some kind of manipulation to bring the price above the Nasdaq $35 million minimum for listing? Maybe Cox is finally leaving?
No., I didn't forget, but it depends on where you are trying to go. Five consecutive days like yesterday would get us close to the pre-split price.
Big price jump today. All we need is 5 more days like that in a row and it will mean something.
What do you mean GTCB will NOW become a tax loss stock? It has been that for quite some time.
Mad City,
You hit the nail on the head. The only thing that matters to management is their salaries, not the shareholders or the employees. The other issue is why would GTCB want to spend a single dime to retain Cox? The guy needed to make cost cutting moves severals years ago but actually increased spending and failed to make deals that would generate cash and or completely cover production costs. The imbeciles in management even took 6 months to figure out that they should sue LEO for pulling out of the ATRYN deal.
Nice to see GTCB finally go up. I guess the announcement they are cutting costs a bit helped as did the new cash from LFB. Unfortunately, it is far too little and likely too late. The price for the cash was high in terms of dilution to shareholders. The cost cutting is long overdue, but they don't just need to focus on factor VIIa. The need to sell the rights to some of their other products, say factor X or one of the their CD20 MAbs for up front cash NOW, complete coverage of expenses in production/trials and a percentage of the future profits. Otherwise we are looking at another major dilution in 6 months or so.
Right. Next you will expect people to go to jail for creating a house of cards by creating mortgage financing and getting hundreds of millions of dollars based on false profits. They should give the money back too, but I won't hold my breath.
Don't worry, in their very finite and shallow "wisdom", management will soon sell another 100% of the company for 6 months or so of life. Management will also fail to cut cash burn in any way, say by cutting salaries and excess management. They will also not see the wisdom in selling off the rights to any product in development to cut cash burn and raise much needed cash as opposed to another massive dilution. Management will reassure shareholders that they are getting their financial house in order and tell us that that are still talking to the FDA about expanding the ATRYN label to acquired deficiencies. As usual no timelines will be provided nor will there be any talk of milestones coming from Ovation to fund any trial expansion. Management may also report they are starting some new projects that will not bring in nay ahs so will increase cash burn eventhohg they haveno money. This will show us that management is serious about a long-term vision of building a big company with many products despite having no means to do so.
Sorry, I was thinking of the 2nd quarter report and web cast from yesterday not the annual meeting.
cleith,
Thanks for the information. Yes it is laughable that Cox actually talked about restablishing financial stability. There was no mention of cost cutting to preserve cash. I sold off 1/3 of my position. If Cox doesn't talk about slashing expenses in the Annual meeting and or announces some kind of deal to bring in up front cash, then I will be looking to sell more.
Just having a program in place would be a positive.
Oky and Flo,
Don't be fooled by Dew shooting from the hip with his usual negative bent on everything GTCB. Yes the concept isn't new, but that doesn't mean there isn't new data. The news release from a few days ago describes a new paper that was published in the past few weeks. The previous news release was about a year ago so there will almost certainly be new data generated in the interval. Absent a thorough analysis of all the data available one year ago, to that in the new paper, only someone with a inherent negative bias against GTCB (i.e. Dew) would slam it out of hand as old news. I guess if a drug went from pre-clinical studies to phase I or from phase I to phase II it would be old news to Dew. While the Alzheimer connection may be interesting, it doesn't have any immediate impact on GTCB. Remember, Pharmathene is the one who would get the lions share of the impact. One would have to look at the deal with Pharmathene to see how much or how little GTCB would benefit. It is far too soon to spin this as some kind of positive impact for GTCB. 5 or 10 years ago it would have been fine, but we need some positive news that has immediate impact on GTCB's finances.
If you recall, Dew launched a negative and in my view, unwarranted attack against Tom Newberry the other day. Yes, Tom spun the MM-093 story in a very positive light, but that is his job and he didn't lie. I didn't think the MM-093 had any value before Tom's words were posted by Oky, nor do I think it has any value now, absent a partnership deal which I am dubious about. Tom doesn't make the deals, and the type of deals being made is what makes me unhappy. Tom has taken the time to talk with me when I had questions, and I am grateful to him for that. I am still quite unhappy with GTCB management and the lack of any real concern for GTCB's poor financial position.
Good job oky. Please be sure to post the response. It is poor management to make deals like the one with the korean firm for insulin and now the Merrimack deal. The former didn't even obtain funds to perform the initial work let alone up front money beyond GTCB's outlays to do the initial studies. The Merrimack deal means they will continue expending money on keeping that herd going, instead of being able to either cut expenditures or divert resources to other projects with more immediate chances for revenue or that don't have the whiff of failure like MM-093. If GTCB had set up a deal for MM-093 that pays upfront money, it owudl be different, but it sounds like typical Cox, we will assemble more projects and spreading ourselves thin because some day the sun will shine.
oky,
Why don't you email Tom for some clarification and see what he says.