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<< Imo that post should be deleted as it is creating all kinds of confusion. >>
Agreed, it got me.
geocappy1
Where did you get data for the two groups, have link?
Thanks.
One patient and MOS = 12
MOS is not great, but if one more patient of the first 6 in group 2 were censored MOS would have been 12.
Group 1
1,1,2,2,2,5.2,5.2,5.2,5.2,5.2,5.2 = MOS 5.2
Group 2
1,1,1,1,1,5.6,12,12,12,12,12 = MOS of 5.6 with interesting
subgroup results
Now let's look at the average
Group 1: MOS = 5.2, mean = 3.56
Group 2: MOS = 5.6, mean = 6.4
Looks like Bavi works
<< They didn't do it yesterday and not today either (we don't even have 400 call contracts in ALL series combined today) >>
If I were to sell 400 contracts I wouldn't do it all at the same time, not even in the same day. Selling 400 in one attempt on a slow day like today could erode the price.
As for calendar spread if one expects the PPS to appreciate in May or June a good play would be to buy July ITM options and sell April OTM options to lower the cost. And then after the April options expire worthless one can sell July OTM again and have the originally purchased options practically for free. Sure, this is just a hypothetical scenario and everything has to go just right.
Well, the volume is low and PPS not going down, that's good. We haven't had a good bear raid for quite some time, it would not surprise me to see one on a low volume day. Put in some cheap limit buy orders just in case.
<< That is a very good explanation, were it not that there have not been and trades of calls in a comparable volume that would support this being part of a spread. >>
True, but the spread doesn't have to be created in a single trade or on the same day. There are also calendar spreads where one buys July calls and sells April calls or a mixture of calls across calendar and price range etc. Sometimes is difficult to see what goes on.
<< im heavily invested in feb calls. >>
$2 Feb calls are going for 0.15, Feb $2.5 ask is 0.05, bid is 0, none traded today yet. I would assume you have $2.5 calls and it will be hard to get anything out of it unless PPHM goes up some today or tomorrow.
Buying OTM calls is always a risky proposal, you should be prepared to lose it all. If I were in your position I would hang on to the calls I have and buy March or April calls on Friday. We should have some news within next 30 to 60 days.
I've been a writer of Feb 2 and 2.5 calls but will not do the same in March as we are approaching the end of p2 pancreatic trial.
You can still get lucky if we have some breakthru this week, and how would you feel if you sell your Feb options for peanuts just before the announcement. GLTY
<< Someone spent $40,500 today to buy 400 July 1.50 calls at 1.05 today. >>
That is most likely a part of the spread, a low risk conservative trade probably by professionals.
What you do is buy July 1.5 calls for $1.05 and sell July $3 (or some other OTM call) for $0.50.
Net cost is 1.05 - 0.5 = 0.55 which is also your max loss.
Your max profit would be 3 - 1.5 - 0.55 = 0.95 or 73% assuming the stock is at 3 or higher in July.
If you buy the stock at 2.1 and it goes to 3 you have 42% profit.
Max loss could be considerably higher if the stock tanks, so could max profit if the stock goes above $3.
The trader is apparently less enthusiastic about PPHM the we are on this board and is satisfied with 73% gain in 5 months while reducing the risk.
Well, you won't get the March 2.5 call for a nickel, they are asking quarter. Sure, I would buy them for nickel too. Volatility has dropped last two weeks, options are less expensive now and call writing is less attractive.
$2 march calls are going for 35 to 40 cents, I would rather buy those than $2.50 for a quarter.
<< I'm doubling my position through March calls if there's no news by Friday. >>
Is this your trading strategy - buy current month at the money or slightly out of the money calls and repeat the process next month if those expire worthless? Suppose we don't get news for 3 more months - it could get expensive to speculate that way.
I've been selling Feb $2 and $2.50 calls last few weeks on about 30% of my position to lower my share price. In 4 days we will know who made the right move. Good luck to you.
Survival Rates by Lung Cancer Stage
Stage 1 Non-Small Cell - The overall 5-year survival rate for stage 1 lung cancer is 60-80%.
Stage 2 Non-Small Cell - The overall survival rate with stage 2 lung cancer is 40-50%.
Stage 3A Non-Small Cell - The overall survival rate for stage 3A lung cancer is 23%, but this varies widely among different cancers that are classified as stage 3A.
Stage 3B Non-Small Cell - The 5-year survival rate with stage 3B lung cancer is only 10%. The median survival time with treatment is 13 months.
Stage 4 (Metastatic) Non-Small Cell - The overall 5-year survival rate with stage 4 lung cancer is sadly less than 10%. The median survival time is about 8 months.
Small Cell Lung Cancer - Limited Stage - The overall 5-year
survival rate for both stages of small cell lung cancer combined is only about 6%. In Small Cell Lung Cancer - Extensive Stage - The overall 5-year survival rate for both stages of small cell lung cancer combined is about 6%. Without treatment, the average life expectancy for extensive disease is 2 to 4 months, and with treatment is 6 to 12 months.
http://lungcancer.about.com/od/whatislungcancer/a/lungcancersurvivalrates.htm
<< If the 50% patient (calendar time) only lives 1 day, is that the median? >>
Are you trying to confuse the issue even more? Let me expand your question - 50% only live 1 day and the other 50% live exactly one year. What is the MOS and how long do you have to wait to measure it correctly?
"Median is used so that the trial endpoint can be calculated once 50% of subjects have reached the endpoint".
The above statement, which is also a standard procedure in clinical trials, clearly can't be applied to your example. Actually, it can be applied but the result is badly misleading.
<< For Peregrine to give that much leeway to CSM there must be more then just neglect. >>
Interesting thought. Could you elaborate on this a little more?
<< ...company has chosen a high enough death count that they will be certain the MOS for both arms have been reached ...>>
Pancreatic and first line NSCLC are not blinded trials, company should know within days when MOS for either arm has been reached and could use MOS in Bavi arm for the trigger point.
Folfirinox is chemotherapy regimen, Bavi is antibody. Mechanism of action for these drugs is different. I am no expert in this field but it looks to me chemo works the best on the beginning of the treatment and antibody probably works better with time. It doesn't really have to shrink tumors, stopping the growth and preventing new mets from being formed would be sufficient to considerably prolong OS.
<<LOL...you probably sold some to me.>>
OK, that's what makes the market - we shall see who gets the last laugh next Friday. GLTY
<<The difference is whether the transactions take place at the bid, or the ask. If it is at the ask, it is a "buy." If it is at the bid, it is a "sell.>>
Quite obvious but it is hard to see how can the share price go down when more transactions take place at ask. The only explanation is manipulation by churning and then you really don't know if a "buy" is a true buy by a third party and not by MM. I bought several thousand shares of another small cap stock yesterday and it was all almost exclusively in 100 share transactions - MMs playing games.
<<Bought more calls today.>>
Interesting - which ones did you get? I've been selling $2 and $2.50 Feb covered calls last few weeks to lower my share price and doing some day trading - sell in the morning and buy back at close. If no news next week, as I expect, share price should linger around $2 or a little lower.
<<$322,000 more buys than selling today>>
This is a zero net game. For every share bought there is one sold.
<<$2.08...geee ya don't say...... >>
No news, no pre-market trades - 2.08 looks good now, We could be going below $2 again.
Earnings
They'll take it down regardless what the earnings are.
<< BioBS2012 The ONTY/Stimuvax story as I remember it: ... the trial failed >>
Almost unbelievable. Why did it fail? Placebo arm living longer for some unexplained reason, labeling mixup or something else?
<< Next tues you can buy at 1.87 >>
No way. How did you arrive at that conclusion?
Hard to say. Buy a little now, if it dips lower double down. IMO stock will be at least 3.50 in May.
<< If King was correct in is statement back in late 2012 that pphm believes that at 1mg the target is saturated, then you would not see a dose-dependent effect in survival, meaning 1mg and 3mg would theoretically produce the same MOS>>
OK, I was not aware of that, it would certainly explain almost identical K-M curves for 1mg and 3mg. Thanks
<<So the cleaning person changing the labels, as was posted by someone, can be excluded. >>
You can't draw that conclusion. I do some contract work occasionally in the large computer center with restricted access and high security. Yet the cleaning people have access to it all the time, and the best part is that some of them are mentally handicapped. They can't log in the machines but they can trip the circuit breakers or reboot. I know, it doesn't make sense but that's the way it is.
<<What impact, if any, would bavi 1mg MOS be if it missed one or two, etc.. doses? >>
Well, that would be hard to believe, the 1mg and 3mg doses look almost identical on KM curve. So, are you saying that 1mg arm can miss a couple of doses and still look as good as a 3mg dose and be stat sig.? It just doesn't make sense.
<< Some of the placebo arm received 1mg dosage at least some of the time and vice versa some of the 1mg arm received placebo at least some of the time >>
That would be the logical conclusion if you believe the statement that 3mg was not affected. It also means that without labeling screwup the results for 1mg Bavi would be at least little better. Looking at the K-M curves 'little better' for 1mg Bavi really means that 1mg works just as good as 3mg, or even better. Looks like the optimum dose, at least for 2nd line NSCLC, lies somewhere in between 1 and 3mg. Based on that logic FDA should approve p3 trial with two different doses.
Also if one were looking at KM curves without knowing which arms were affected with labeling errors normal conclusion would have been that 1mg and 3mg were affected as those two curves look almost identical. It is actually hard to believe that 1mg and placebo arms were mixed up looking at really great separation of placebo and 1mg on the K-M curves. This issue is even more confusing after the statement that 3mg was not affected.
<<IMO, it is going to get ugly as newbies buying in the 2's and looking for a quick pop, head for the exit.>>
Exactly. It is called shaking monkeys out of the tree.
<<I would like to buy more @1.80>>
You can do it now. Buy at 1.94, sell $2 Feb call for 0.15, or if you want to but for $1.65 buy shares and sell $2 Mar call for 0.30.
<< Likely we here about update 2nd NSCLC investigation next month.>>
No. Per PPHM "we expect to report data from the pancreatic trial during the first quarter of 2013, and data from the first-line NSCLC trial during the first half of 2013."
In some of your posts you say the longer we wait the better. Are you losing your patience or is "Frustrated" getting the best of you?
<< I would think this would be pretty much known at this point as these trials are open label. >>
Correct, and we expect good results but market reaction and PPS can really be wrong going into the binary event.
The best last example is KERX and I don't know how many here are familiar with it so I will say a few words. The kidney disease drug, Zerenex, passed p3 trial previously in Japan and positive results from the other longer p3 trial here in US was almost a sure thing. Yet the stock was stuck just below $3 facing binary event, and several days ago went up a bit on a leak. The p3 results were announced two days ago and KERX closed today at $8.36 or 3 times higher than where it was on Jan 18. Given that the expectation or probability for positive result was at least 80% how can we explain 200% gain in price after the announcement. It doesn't make any sense, should have gone up about 20% or so. I couldn't believe market was so wrong, so I sold too early at 6 for 100% gain. Same thing happened to few other biotech stocks on my radar screen and one has to come to the conclusion that PPS going into binary event is deliberately kept down by shorts, MMs or others who want to get in at the rock bottom prices etc.
This is most likely the case with PPHM too, price went over $2.50 on Jan 7, and it is down to $2 today while the fundamentals haven't changed or actually got better based on better MOS expectation with more elapsed time.
<< Surely Big Pharma knows the data results by now >>
Not necessarily, if MOS hasn't been reached they don't know, or don't know enough. Nobody is going to throw billions at PPHM unless almost absolutely sure about Bavi efficacy. You just gonna have to wait, like the rest of us. BP may know more but not enough to make commitment. They may want to wait till the first line NSCLC trial data become available and that may be 6 months out.
<< Did someone tell the shorts that their safe for the next two months? >>
Shorts are not responsible for this slow PPS decline. It is the low volume that allows market makers to churn shares with no buyers to interfere - happens all the time. Better get used to this - it may continue till the end of this quarter or even longer if MOS for pancreatic cancer is good, hence no endpoint. I guess we will have to wait a couple more months for Loof Korn Licker Classic winner. I can't see anything happening till the MOS is announced - probably by the end of March. Patience, and if you believe in Bavi science hang on to your shares, all IMHO only.
<< pitiful close and volume drying up! still holding shares but i think $1.80 is coming in a week or so >>
Sure, no buyers in the absence of news. That has been expected. One could sell some and buy it back for 10 to 20% less or sell Feb $2 covered calls but it is a risky proposal - could miss the boat.
<< Best of Luck and Data! >>
Well, we will have to wait for data. Just got reply to my email from Investor Relations - nothing new. PPHM expects to report data from the pancreatic trial during the first quarter of 2013, and data from the first-line NSCLC trial during the first half of 2013. So, probably nothing till March, and by that time PPS could be down another 10% or more. Yea, I know, the suspense is killing us, so is the share price.
They will break $2. To use your language they were first banging their heads on 2.25, then 2.15 and now 2. PPS will continue to slowly go down till we get some data.
<< Couldn't/Shouldn't PPHM PR confirming MOS not achieved? >>
I sent an email to PR on Friday, this was one of the questions. No reply yet.
<< IMO the MOS for the pancreatic trial has already been reached >>
MOS is a material event, it should be announced.