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Agree, it appears they are in a state of denial. Until Amgen bailed, I held under the thesis that even though no one wanted to partner on AXAL, the valuation was way too low just on the NEO deal worth $500 million and the endorsement of Amgen. Now that that is gone and the company has no access to non dilutive capital and significantly reduced access to dilutive capital, the fundamentals are much different now.
Downward pressure...the stock has dropped from $3 to $0.20 just this year. What a relief, glad we have not seen real downward pressure.
No one has rights on HOT. Amgen could have struck a deal on HOT but chose not to, so they didn't miss the boat on anything. They decided not to board the boat.
What do you mean they missed the boat. No one has struck a licensing deal with ADXS on HOT yet. Amgen has been able to any anytime but hasn't, likely because they didn't believe it has a high probability for success.
Alternately, the string of fundamental blows has left the company with very few options, so there is nothing positive Berlin can say. Just a few months ago, he said in a presentation one of the reasons the company will succeed was because of its strong partmership with Amgen.
Or maybe it's as simple as this:
Amgen evalated the responses of the first cohort of NEO patient, and while the data was early and inconclusive, Amgen felt it pointed to significantly lower probability of success of the clincial program so decided to cuts its losses and end the partnership even after $65m of sunk costs in the program. Moreover, because Amgen did not take out any option on HOT, Amgen is not convinced ADXS' personalized or off the shelf neoantigen program has a high probability for sucess.
Just warning others and offsetting deceptive claims that the company is worth billions, which is not supported by the reality of ADXS' weak position and fact that Amgem, who once gave the company $65m, lost confidence in the platform and ended its partnership.
Considering that the company's ONLY source of non dilutive funding, Amgen, had doubts in the science and ended their partnership with ADXS, I won't buy again. The company is late stage so plenty of data has been absorbed by the market yet no pharma is stepping up and putting skin in the game even at the companys dirt cheap valuation. Ask yourself why. The science has spoken, unfortunately not the way we envisioned this would turn out a few years ago.
His views are supprted by the reality that the company is in a very weak position. The claim in another post that AXAL is worth $2.5b is irresponsible and misleading and not based on reality. If AXAL were worth even 1/10th of that, ADXS wouldn't be trading at less than cash value and had to have turned to toxic financing in the last dilution on terrible terms with warrants attached but instead would have had a BP step up and partner AXAL with upfront cash, which hasn't happened. Those are facts.
Yes, one in a million. Irrational, groundless hope springs eternal around here so why not. It's interesting seeing the company's fundamentals collapse with the final blow being Amgen loosing faith in the platform, yet some are still speaking about NEO, HOT being groundbreaking and future big dollar buyouts. The reality is the company is running out of money, lost its only paying partner and has very little investor interest as evidenced by the last toxic dilution.
LOL, yes, I'm sure you'd gladly take more than a 50x return, who wouldn't. You have as much of a chance winning Powerball as ADXS going from $0.20 to $10.
Unlikely anyone is looking to buy in cheaper. Only a fool would buy now. The fundamental picture has changed now that the only paying partner bailed, which raises doubts about the validity of the science.
Good point. To management's credit, they haven't sold their shares which indicated they believed in the company and were not part of a scam. But in addition to mismanaging the company from a fiscal perspective, they also (like all of us) overestimated the promise of the science so Amgen's pulling the plug was a wake-up call to both management and LTSHs have who thought the science would ultimately carry the company forward, which appears to no longer be the case considering the world's largest, most successful biotech has said otherwise.
Soon, when the company goes under there will be nothing more to debate.
"This appears bad, but it could remove handcuffs of Amgen."
Unfortunately, the Amgen deal was the last hope for this company. In a recent presentation, Berlin said one of the three primary reasons folks should consider investing in ADXS and why the company will succeed was due to its strong partnership with Amgen, so clearly Amgen bailing was a huge fundamental blow he didn't expect as Amgen was ADXS' ONLY deal that had any monetary value. Any way you look at it, Amgen wouldn't have bailed if the early data in NEO were compelling.
Also, the terms of the last dilution were horrific, couldn't get any worse and the stock has gone down further since then, so I would be surprised if any entity would give this company (aka, the capital destroyer) more money at this point, hence the negative enterprise value assigned to ADXS. It's wind-down for the company.
I hear you. There is so little value in the company now, I understand the case to see it through to the end. On the other hand, I sold when Amgen pulled the plug, because fundamentally that was the last straw and the company has nothing now. If Berlin declares bankrupcy, we could see the final drop to $0 so I figured I'd salvage what I could.
Good luck. Any BP could buy ADXS now for less than cash on the balance sheet, close the company and pocket the cash. Why has that not happened? Likely because they realize that pouring more money into the company will not result in commercial success, which leaves us where we are (Berlin will drain the remaining cash on salaries to benefit management before declaring all options have been exhausted and bankruptcy is the only option).
Exactly, it's not a bad thing if Amgens decision to bail out of the ADXS deal was just based on realignment, reprioritization and cost cutting...even if the result is ADXS going into bankrupcy. Any way you look at it though, at the end of the day Amgens decision was based on reprioritization on its deals with platforms it concluded had the best chance of commercial success, which didn't include ADXS. Human nature is such that some will remain in denial until the day the power company turns off the lights in the ADXS' manufacturing facility it spent so much to support NEO.
Do you still think it was because of manufacturing problems? In that case, it's reflective of management problems. You would think they would have gotten it right considering how much they ramped up employee headcount.
The evidence is that the NEO trial is open label so Amgen has no doubt seen data at this point, at least early data, on the first group of patients dosed. If the data was compelling, they most likely would not have bailed and cut their losses this early. So it is reasonable to conclude that the data to date was not what they had expected in order to justify continuation of their investment in the clinical program.
As I said in an earlier post, I was dead wrong and acknowledge it. I believed in the platform and its potential, hence a sizeable investment that is unrecoverable at this point.
I don't recall sayimg that about Lombardo, and regarding Berlin at this point I think it's becoming clear his management doesn't matter given the cracks we are starting to see in the science with once believers such as Amgen giving up on the platform. It's beyond management at this point, as no BP believes in the science enough to put skin in the game
While the company not hear it, at least we can warn others considering investing that this company is a destroyer of investor capital.
I feel like an idiot not selling last year. I legitimately thought the firing of O'Connor was a positive step and part of a plan in which an "interim" CEO would be put in place as the Board finalized a sale of the company given our late-stage clinical trial. Boy was I dead wrong. Instead, the Board had no plan of action after firing O'Connor and took a year to find a permanent CEO because the company was in a position of weakness, not strength. Painful and costly learning experience. I also always thought that while the company was poorly managed, at the end of the day we would see value because of the validity of the platform. I was wrong on that front as well, as evidenced by Amgen losing confidence in the science.
"Denial" is one of the five stages of loss. Advaxis is done and most likely going out of business. Amgen, the ONLY monetary partnership the company has, lost confidence in the validity of the technology and pulled the plug, which was truly a game changer and final nail in this coffin of a company. Think about the terms of the, not one, but two dilutions this year. What institutional investor in their right mind is going to give Advaxis money now, especially after seeing Amgen running for the hill?
Blue, the magnitude of ADXS' losses can only be offset by saving more and working longer/retiring later. Based on a compound annual return of 10% (the historical stock market return), it will take 17 years for ADXS to get back to $1 (assuming the company does not go bankrupt.
Maybe when he told you to stay tuned, he was alluding to Amgen about to bail but couldn't reveal it yet.
Actually, there has been a fundamental game change with Advaxis since Agmen, who has been privy to early data on the NEO patients dosed to date, lost confidence in the science and bailed. I did not manufacture the fact that ADXS's only monetary partner decided it is better to loose the $65 million it already paid ADXS than to continue the NEO trials and risk loosing more.
"If the data that comes in 2019 is promising, we're fine.
If not, bye-bye Miss American Pie..."'
Unfortunately, the bye-bye has already happened, the company is in liquidation now. ADXS trial data and future hopes and promises has been absorbed by the market and potential partners, resulting in no bid. It's wind down now with the only holders being retail and index funds. Index funds will rebalance out of the stock, while we bag holders will come to grips that we made a bad investment in the coming months as the company value finally goes to zero.
If they declare bankrupcy, which won't be until Berlin burns the rest of the cash on salaries over the next several months, the assets will then be sold for pennies on the dollar through court proceedings.
Correct, the platform is not worth much which is why Amgen bailed and the company hasn't found a partner for any other construct and has a negative enterprise value.
At the end of the day, Amgen gave ADXS $65m in upfront non refundable cash for a construct Amgen later decided wasn't worth that much. So it's hard to say ADXS got a bad deal.
I think they got caught by surprise as much as we did, because in one of Berlin's recent presentations he said a primary reason the company will succeed and investors should be interested is because of their partnership with Amgen. So what is he going to say now. Not much to say. The devastating blow to the company's future spoke for itself in the 8k.
Its human nature/denial and failure to come to grips that we made a bad investment so instead make up a pure fantasy positive scenario not based in reality.
The most likely reason they bailed IMO is that they saw early data on the first few patients dosed and the tumor responses fell short of expectations. It's that straightforward. Talk of Amgen fearing Merck would get HOT or that HOT is better is fantasy. Amgen could buy ADXS as a whole in a blink or license HOT and test it alongside NEO. Who knows, but one could argue that for Amgen to bail this early the first read on the data likely fell significantly short of expectations. The market pricing ADXS at a negative enterprise value translates to there be virtually no investor or BP interest in the platform. Aduro shuttered their LLM tech, and the market is saying there is no future for ADXS' tech either.
How likely is it the company was given "notice" by Amgen a year ago and Sid Ratsky liked Berlin and went to him with the proposal "Ken, considering ROSG is about to go belly up I've got another opportunity that has about a year of runway left. I'll make an announcement that you are eminently qualified to run it, give you a hefty salary and a $150k bonus if you round up a years worth of death spiral dilution, then when things unravel we'll say we explored all options before we declare bankrupcy and I place you in another company."
Interesting article. Any chance ADXS investors will see recovery?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-11/madoff-victims-get-419-million-payment-10-years-after-arrest
Donway, who knows, time will tell. I will say though, capitulation in the normal sense implies a buying opportunity based on an over-reaction. I would argue what has happened to ADXS is a fundamental implosion: no one interested in partnering on AXAL, no takers on HOT yet and the companys only monetary partner cutting its losses after scrutinizing the platform more. Couple this with the dry up in imvestor interest and the company running out of money 10 months. Not a lot to be excited about.
Unfortunately Blue, that is not how the market works. We made a bad bet and lost our shirts. Life goes on. LTSHs are owned nothing, and your comments about those trying to drill the stock down should include Amgen, right, because they bailed on ADXS. At the end of the day, the stock has reacted to the performance of the company, whether it be the way finances were mismanaged and not spent efficiently over the last five years to a partner bailing because they lost conviction on the value of the technology.
Keith, true that anything can happen, but the reality is things are not looking good at all for ADXS. The company's lifeline, Amgen, just bailed, which is a catastrophic negative development. Many of us thought if the company wasn't able to partner the first gen constructs because they are dated, NEO will carry the company to the next level. Well, Amgen looked beneath the hood and did not like what they saw and decided it was better to throw the $65 million they already gave ADXS down the drain rather than risk investing further and loosing even more. I remember listening to the Cantor presentation and Berlin said one of the primary reasons ADXS will succeed and investors should take a look is because of the company's partnership with Amgen. Enough said. Even if a white knight came in to save the company at this point, the equity is currently worth nothing so the terms an investor would require would be extremely unattractive to existing shareholders. I think the likely potential scenario is that over the next 10 months, Berlin lets cash run out to pay salaries while stating "we are looking at all options" then in the second half of next year declares bankruptcy just as he did at ROSG or sells the company for pennies on the dollar.