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That's the one thing I am confident that NNVC is fully capable of carrying out. Sell 80,000,000 shares at 0.50 to raise $40 million. Thus increasing the number of shares outstanding by 50%, and so reducing the value of the shares you already bought by one third.
I can assure you that the investors in the 90% of failing biotechs felt exactly the same way about the stocks they invested in as you do about NNVC. Sure, those *other* biotechs were losers but *their* stock was a sure thing.
So your prediction that NNVC will close 2012 at a record price is based on nothing but blind hope. (Unless you meant a record low.) You admit yourself that the news that matters won't come out until the end of 2013 -- if, contrary to past history, NNVC stays on schedule.
You don't have to work in the biotech industry to see that most highly speculative ventures based on bleeding edge science fail. Yes, biotech is one of the few places where you can get 10 baggers on your investment. That's because for every 10 bagger there are 9 other biotechs that looked equally promising and went to 0. For a startup biotech the most common way to fail is to run out of money before it has a product proven to work. NNVC has a good chance of going out in precisely that way. Big pharma won't come breaking down the door just because toxicity studies or phase 1 trials have completed. Those studies merely show that the product doesn't kill people. Big pharma will be willing to make a big investment after a successful phase 2 trial of sufficient size and statistical significance to convince a skeptic that he should part with many millions of dollars of his money. I don't give NNVC better than even odds of that happening before they run out of money.
I don't work in the biotech industry. Neither do most of the boosters of this stock. So what?
I do see the development of the oral form of Fluicide as a very positive development. That will lower the cost of testing and lower the cost and increase the availability of the final product. Indeed, it's been the most positive news for NNVC of the past year.
As for snagging some bio-defense money in the near future, it's certainly not something I would count on. It could happen, but it's hard to say what the odds are.
It is clear that everything hinges upon those magical "phase IIa" trials -- phase II trials that aren't *really* phase II trials (that would cost too much) but will nonetheless show such compelling evidence of efficacy that big pharma comes lining up to invest.
That's a mighty slender reed upon which to hang one's hopes.
In any case, I wouldn't put better than even odds on NNVC actually completing phase IIa trials within two years. After which they will be seriously strapped for cash.
"Cranking out a cide every 6 mo. "
And that's the problem. In two years NNVC will have 'cides that can cure half of all known viral diseases -- in rats. Then they will be out of money.
What it really needs is *one* drug that has been put through toxicity testing, phase 1, and phase 2 trials. Only then will big pharma come knocking on the door offering to pay for the more expensive phase 3 trials.
Unfortunately in two years we are far more likely to get a dozen 'cides that work in rats than one 'cide that works in humans.
There's a reason this stock never gets any legs.
I'll believe that when I see it.
It seems to be that NNVC doesn't want to start tox studies until they can raise more money. But they can only raise money by selling more shares. So they want the share price to go up first. But the share price will do nothing but drift down until tox studies are completed and human trials can begin. Round peg, meet square hole.
I have always felt that the biggest risk with NNVC is financial, not scientific. Nothing in the latest release has changed my mind on that.
I agree. There was nothing in the 10K to increase my optimism about the company. Just three more years of pre-clinical trials, if they don't run out of money before then. We don't need any more 'cides that have only been proven to work in rats. There just isn't a lot of money to be made in producing drugs to treat sick rats.
Have toxicity studies *finally* begun? Nothing of substance can be done until those studies are completed. So unless the answer is "yes", I don't see how you can say that Fluicide is getting closer to market every day.
Well, we can look forward to an interesting end of the month.
I watched as much of "Thrive" as I could without throwing up.
NNVC faces some real risks, but leave the paranoia behind.
Frankly, I think you are being paranoid. No, I don't believe that evil conspiracies did in Tesla or Reich. The risks NNVC take are
(1) Scientific. Fluicide just might not be safe and effective in humans.
(2) Financial. NNVC might just not have enough money to get through the increasingly expensive phase I, phase II, and phase III trials. They may have to "give away the store" to some vulture investor to get enough money for the phase III tests, effectively wiping out existing shareholders. If the phase II tests go well that will not be a probable outcome, but it's a possible one. (I fully expect that there will have to be some share dilution when NNVC raises money or finds a partner for phase III testing, but if NNVC is priced higher as a result of good phase II tests that won't be too bad, just par for the course for a biotech start up.)
NNVC does not have to worry that Rumsfeld is going to bring them down. As for the interminable dithering about that seems to be going on at NNVC, I think it's because the management is fully aware of the financial risks, and know they basically have one shot at proving the worth of Fluicide. So they want to make sure they have all their ducks in a row before they start the expensive testing. I'd do the same if I were in their position.
You can count on politicians worldwide giving us those negative disruption black swan events.
Argh, I accidentally submitted the previous post before I finished typing. I meant to say that humans are special, they live much longer than rats (among other things). So it's still possible we'll see some toxicity in humans but I don't see it as very likely.
I agree with this. Most likely Fluicide will not have significant toxicity in humans. But humans are special. For one thing, they live many times longer
Actually drkazmd65 made a good case for a middle ground. It's entirely possible that Fluicide works in people but has side effects too severe for widespread use. Then it could still be a profitable drug for treatment of severe flu cases or for treating disease in livestock, but not the blockbuster everyone here is hoping for. Fluicide could also turn out to be perfectly safe, and effective in humans, but not as effective as people expect -- say, about the same as Tamiflu, or only a bit better. Then it could still be a successful drug, but again, not the breakthrough people hope for. There are quite a few possible outcomes between bankruptcy and NNVC going to $100 a share.
A rational speculator wants to buy *before* the price goes up, which means he wants to buy before phase 2 trials are completed.
I did not say people should buy after phase 2 results. I said phase 2 results are a long way off, and there is plenty of time to buy before then. Most of the boosts in the stock price that you talk about (completing toxicity testing, phase 1 testing starting, phase 1 testing ending, phase 2 testing starting) will create precisely the sort of short term spike in the price we've just seen. After the eager beavers grab their shares the price starts drifting down again. Heck, even the first of these events (completion of toxicity testing) appears to be months away, so there's no pressing reason for a speculator to get in now rather than a week or a month from now.
In the post I'm replying to, I wrote, "there will still be plenty of time to buy this stock in the 0.50s." I was of course trashed for being a nattering nabob of negativity. Well, here we are. Speculators who listened to me can get a significantly better price than the ones who listened to the usual boosters and felt they had to grab shares in the mid .70s before the stock went to the moon.
How much lower will NNVC go? I don't know. All I know for certain is that there is no reason for this stock to go up until phase II trials are completed, giving at least some indication of efficacy. That's a long time away, so patience will be rewarded when buying this stock.
I am not "convinced of the final outcome" and that's just the point. Some people here, while claiming they understand that this is a risky, speculative stock, nonetheless insist they know that the final outcome will be positive. On the other hand, if I was convinced that the final outcome would be negative I'd dump my shares right now, at a loss.
I see this a a crap shoot. My gut feel is that there is about a 40% chance of success. If so, this is a lottery ticket worth buying, since after success the stock will be worth a lot more than 250% of what it is now. But still, I see worse than even odds that this stock will go to zero. People with a poor grasp of probabilities and expectation don't understand why I would own a stock when I see bankruptcy as the most probable outcome. I hope most people here haven't speculated with more money than they can afford to lose.
The smart money knows all the things you listed. They know how the drug is supposed to work. They know that there is a plan to start phase I human trials sometime on or before December, 2013. They know that testing for efficacy against flu is a lot easier than testing for efficacy against heart disease or cancer.
But still the market prices NNVC at below 0.65. Has it occurred to you that maybe some of those guys with serious money know things you don't know? Such as how many "sure things" in biotech and advanced technology turned out to not be so sure after all?
Now I personally think that the odds of success with Fluicide are somewhat better than 13%. That's why I own the stock. But the odds are a lot worse than the 99.9%, 99%, 90%, or 80% that many of you here seem to think they are.
That is typical of the posts here. There are many drugs that work in mice but are either unsafe or don't work in humans. But if you dare point out that Fluicide is far from a sure thing at this point you are equated with the idiots who say the moon landings were faked.
Current Price of Stock = F * P where F = price of stock if Fluicide is proven to be safe and effective in humans and P = the market's collective estimate of the probability that Fluicide will be proven safe and effective in humans.
The current price of NNVC is about 0.65. I think that most people here agree that *if* Fluicide is proven safe and effective in humans then NNVC will have a share price north of $5. (Plenty of people here will say "North of $50!", "North of $500!", but let's be conservative). It follows that the *market* (not me) is estimating P at <= 0.13. That is, the market sees only a 13% chance of success, at best. So I'm not the only one who believes that this is a risky speculation.
Nanoviricides are certainly drugs, just with a different mechanism of action from other drugs. (At the level of atoms *any* drug can be regarded as a kind of nanomachine.) I am certain that the FDA agrees with me on this issue.
Do I think it likely that nanoviricides are safe in humans? Yes. Do I think the odds of nanoviricides having serious negative side effects are only one in a billion, the same as the chances of you being hit by a bus tomorrow? No. Ask me the same questions about efficacy and again I'd answer "Yes" and "No". Biomedicine has a way of surprising people, often on the downside. The FDA (and the regulatory agencies in other governments) insists upon careful testing of toxicity and efficacy in humans before nanoviricides can be used precisely because they do not really know how safely and well nanoviricides will work in people, contrary to the confident assertions of people on this board.
I own shares of this stock. I see it as a lottery ticket with positive expectation. But I'm not going to put so much money in this stock that I'd be seriously hurting if it goes to zero.
I am well aware that Fluicide works in the blood and does not need to enter cells to work. That doesn't mean it can't have side effects in humans not seen in rats. Nor does it guarantee that it will work in humans.
I am happy that Diwan has confidence in his company. I hope he's right. But I also know that the top executives of a company sometimes have an over optimistic view of their company's prospects. Excessive optimism is almost a requirement for an entrepreneur. (Few of them would start a business if they realized just how miserable the odds really are.)
If Fluicide is ever to be sold in the U.S. it will indeed be necessary to deal with the capriciousness of the FDA. If the clinical trials in Australia unequivocally show safety and clear indication of efficacy then that's great for NNVC. But if the results fail or are merely ambiguous that will be a major blow to NNVC, easily adding another year or more of delay. So yes, it is possible for a company like NNVC to run out of money, and not terribly unlikely unless everything works out just as you hope it does.
"And we could all lose our money. But we all could be hit by a bus tomorrow."
Here you are equating the odds of NNVC going bankrupt with the odds of being hit by a bus tomorrow. I doubt that as many as 100 Americans get hit by a bus in any given year. So the odds of any given American getting hit by a bus on any given day is less than one in a billion. Even Proctor & Gamble has higher odds than one in a billion of going bankrupt in 3 years. Any attempt to estimate the odds of NNVC going bankrupt is of course highly subjective, but we can at least attempt to estimate the order of magnitude. I would say that the chances that NNVC will either go bankrupt within 3 years or be forced to issue large numbers of new shares at a very unfavorable price (diluting us to the point where they may as well have gone bankrupt) is much closer to 1 in 3 than 1 in a billion. They have enough money to demonstrate that their drug works in humans provided that everything goes right, and in a timely manner. Anyone familiar with the pitfalls of human testing and the capriciousness of the FDA is well aware that is far from a sure bet.
You seem to think that we know that this drug works in gerbils and pandas. It's never been tested in those animals so in fact we don't know that it works for gerbils and pandas. If a drug being safe and efficacious for rats always meant that it was safe and efficacious for humans then we'd never have to do those expensive phase I, phase II, and phase III tests. I know how nanoviricides work as well as most of the people here. So what? Many a drug that works in vitro, or in a rat, doesn't work in humans. We won't know whether nanoviricides work in humans until they're tested in humans. They might also have serious side effects -- after all, nothing quite like nanoviricides have ever been put into humans before. I suspect the FDA is quite concerned about this, and will be quite stringent in the toxicity testing.
I agree with your view of the upside. Certainly the shares will be worth many times what they are now if NNVC has a tested and approved drug. So I consider it quite rational for a speculator to put some of his gambling money into this stock. I have myself, despite what the usual paranoid people think. (Does anybody seriously think I have the power to "talk the stock down"? Obviously the stock price will do whatever the market wants it to do regardless of what I say.) I'm just surprised to find someone who thinks that the odds of failure is so remote that he's as likely to get hit by a bus tomorrow, essentially saying that there is no risk at all.
If only investing and speculation were so simple. Just find a stock that will go up by a factor of 100, with 99.9999999% probability. We could all be as rich as Buffet or Soros.
Yes, this board has been around for a long time. So what? During that time NNVC has gone from a high of 2.75 to a low of 0.45. But do those of us who point out the risks in this stock ever get any respect? No, we do not. I sincerely hope that those who bought above 2.50 did so in small size. Otherwise they are in a world of pain right now.
A 0.35 stock price remains a possibility. Let's see where the stock price is in six months. Teeny, no income biotechs can easily go up or down by a factor of 2 in a short period of time.
Really, I'm amazed at the people who think they have invested in a sure thing.
Every day NNVC burns cash and is closer to going bankrupt. If time goes on too long without results the *best* we can hope for is that NNVC stays alive by massively diluting its shares.
Sorry, but that's the risk for all biotech start ups that don't have a source of income.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
The recent news about the effectiveness of oral Fluicide, combined with the hype from Cox and Harris, no doubt explains the spike in this stock. But we're still many months away from completed toxicity testing and even the start of human trials. (And what really counts is the completion, not the start.) So my guess is that the enthusiasm will dissipate as eager subscribers to Cox and Harris finish their buying spree, and there will still be plenty of time to buy this stock in the 0.50s. The hard and expensive part lies ahead.
None of this is to belittle the importance of having a way to deliver Fluicide orally. It would be great to have cough syrup that actually cured your flu or cold. An oral form of Fluicide is important IF Fluicide is shown to be non-toxic in humans and IF Fluicide is shown to be effective in humans. But those two big IFs are no closer to being resolved than they were before the latest PR.
Well, I'm "strangely quiet" because I have better things to do than post about one stock all day long. I have no illusions that my cheering on a stock will somehow make it go up, any more than my pointing out the obvious risks with this stock will make it go down. (And contrary to what the professional paranoids believe, I have never had a short position in this stock.)
Yes, on good news this stock pops up. Then during the no news periods it drifts back down. The biggest hurdle for NNVC lies ahead: Proving the safety and efficacy of Fluicide in humans. That is by far the most expensive part of drug development and the step where most new drugs fall down. Precisely because nanoviricides are a radical new type of drug, unlike anything that's been tried before, I'm sure the toxicity testing will have to be especially stringent.
I earlier guessed that NNVC would hit 0.35 before it saw 0.70 again. I was wrong. But I won't be at all surprised to see NNVC drift back down below 0.50 again in a few months. It's not as if institutions were buying this stock. This is a vehicle for small speculators (of which I am one), and during a news drought there is nothing to prop up the stock price.
Actually, being "pleasantly surprised" seems right on target. Scientists are always pleasantly surprised if an experiment goes the way they hope it will, because they so often don't.
My impression that this is their first attempt at testing an oral version of Fluicide. If I were doing such tests I would expect that I might have to try several different formulations before finding one that worked, or quite likely none of them would, if the little nano-balls don't survive the digestive process. So, yes, having it work on the first try is a pleasant surprise.
I've seen this sort of paranoid on the web many a time. The next step is for incubus-now to claim that you and I are just different aliases for the same nefarious evil doer.
Yes, I'm sure that after the shorters close their positions they come here and hype the stock so the price goes up a nickel and they can short again.
For the same reason most start ups fail by running out of money. They have no source of income but must keep spending more money to move things along.
What if issues arise in the toxicity studies, requiring further tests and thus delaying the trials once again? What if issues arise in the phase I trials? What if the stuff is nontoxic, but just doesn't work in humans? (We are not rats.) Again, the chart for success of NNVC requires that everything work. And that a company best known for missing important milestones actually gets things done on time.
Right, and the rest of you are just issuing rosy scenarios to push the price up. Then you sell, wait for the stock to go down, and repeat the process.
The simple fact is that NNVC can easily run out of money before it has results that would interest big pharma. Call the truth "price manipulation" if you must but it's still the truth. Everything has to go just right for NNVC to succeed. There is no cushion for a Plan B. I hope NNVC does succeed. A lot of pain and suffering will be alleviated, and that's more important than whether the longs or the shorts make money. I'm called a "loon" because I recognize that there's a significant probability that this won't happen.
It looks like a misprint.
I don't have a stock price "model", certainly not for start ups that have no income. But I'm confident we'll see 0.35 before we see 0.70 again. After all, no news that matters is expected for quite some time, and in the meantime the stock price has nothing to do but drift down.