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In my opinion, the best course of action for both $$$ and humanity, would be to move along and get this to market ASAP. That would probably mean using their money, or possibly raising a lot more money, and move ahead with manufacturing. Put themselves in a strong bargaining position and then sell the company to the highest bidder -- a big company with a war chest could speed things along, and in my opinion, that's good for shareholders here and for the patients who need this drug.
I think it's still an under the radar stock. With good results I see this going up 70% (obviously wishing more). Based on the trial length I can't see this having astronomical "we cured cancer" type results, though I hope we have a few that see complete remission (so cured for a small subset). Then on FDA approval we go from $12-$18 area to $25-$35.
If it meets secondary endpoints but not primary I suspect a 30% drop within a day.
Keep in mind they already raised money a few months ago, which was a slight red flag considering results were coming soon. BUT, they had a couple trials to start and it wasn't that near to the results. If they raised a second time before the results, that would be terrible. I think they were just opportunistic when the stock went up to $9 quickly.
I'm still holding. IF it goes up on good results, I wouldn't be surprised if they do a big raise -- I will probably take the risk of that in case they do a big buyout. Plus if results are in fact very good, and we see a big spike followed by a slight fall due to dilution, I'd still rather hold for tax reasons (I haven't been holding a year and would like to be taxed at long term capital gains).
I don't think it works against VBLT because wasn't it kind of approved in practice because it's been the standard of care for a while? Plus VB-111 is used in conjunction with Avastin. They're not willing to drop the Avastin because it's standard of care, but assuming the Avastin doesn't hurt, patients can get the benefit of VB-111 with Avastin. With something so deadly as rGBM, I don't see doctors dropping Avastin since it's been around for a while. If VB-111 never outright replaces Avastin, then I guess there's less potential market share or revenues it can take perhaps.
I think that even if GLOBE is not a great success, their PR statement will say positive results based on one of the endpoints they deem to be "good". I'm not trying to be cynical, I'm long VBLT and hope the OS primary endpoint is a resounding success, but if it's not, they will spin it somehow to not be an unmitigated disaster.
Seems like about a third of the market cap is held by institutions (according to Fintel):
https://fintel.io/so/us/vblt
No update on Thai Lee since September. Knoll Capital Management, who had a massive win with Medivation, holds the same stake as of November.
Exactly, and even if doctors knew, they'd A) have to trade on inside information B) have to buy millions of dollars worth of shares over a few weeks for it to even be conspicuous.
The patients and their families, undergoing hardship, aren't thinking about how they can perhaps game the system by buying a volume of shares that would be noticeable. And one patient's success with the drug wouldn't equate to other people's success. Still a gamble.
They just did a raise before the new trials started, so if they do another raise so soon literally weeks before P3 data.. I don't know how they'd pull it off. People would flee and know bad data is coming.
The fall was not because of a pump and dump, it was because of the dilution. The price was around $5.25 for a bit when I first started eyeing the stock, then it went up to $9 (in part because of the Nanocarrier deal). Then the dilution has brought it down to $6.50-$7. So I would say it's where I would expect it to be when combining those two major things. I also think it would be higher if it was a U.S.-based company.
I listened to the webcast (did more of a play by play on the StockTwits board, same username SCHB). Was a good talk, nothing too new or illuminating that would warrant a press release. But they did seem confident, which was good.
I think there's a big difference between a company with management that is mistrusted treating an extremely hard-to-treat disease and is from a different country and one that is a scam. Perhaps if this was a U.S. company with a smoother IPO, VBLT would be at a similar market cap to ZIOP or far ahead of TOCA which JUST finished their trial. Their was considerable skepticism about their Phase 2 trial design for rGBM and the small sample for ovarian cancer, so I think that's why people are looking at the risk/reward of investing for Phase 3 results and the $200MM market cap is indicative of that. If the market thought this was a scam I wouldn't think VBLT would have the institutional ownership it has.
Thanks again for the detailed analysis. In the next trial for ovarian cancer they will have more participants I presume, so we'll see how it progresses, but at least the limited data for ovarian available now is in the right direction.
The reason for the Forbes writer and AF's skepticism is supposedly comparing 17 patients vs. 4 in the ovarian trial, and the censoring (perhaps one can clarify how and why they censored data?):
Look at the censoring to left of median. Red flag. $VBLT https://t.co/qRfKaKq4iU
— Adam Feuerstein ✡️ (@adamfeuerstein) June 6, 2016
Thanks Oren, I see that now on slide 14: http://ir.vblrx.com/static-files/9b1c10ac-65b5-4867-9100-0c25ab7a1a9c
Can you point to me where they stated mOS for platinum-resistant study was 15.7 months (~475 days)? In their September 2017 presentation it says 810 days. In the presentation you quoted back on October 1, where you pointed out the discrepancy, it also says 810 days.
http://ir.vblrx.com/static-files/f9e8a890-f2da-409d-b180-3302bc886f32
And September 2017:
http://ir.vblrx.com/static-files/9b1c10ac-65b5-4867-9100-0c25ab7a1a9c
Let's presume, staccani, that they are being dishonest with those numbers you cited. If the smaller numbers were replicated in a phase 3 trial for rGBM, would they be good enough for approval? By that I mean, the are the non-inflated numbers still good enough?
Agreed on the hedges against bad results idea. But if there are good results and this is trading at $15-$20 after P3 results, then perhaps we should brace ourselves for another round of dilution. This could be a 'going alone' scenario if VBLT doesn't get big enough BO or partnership offers.
Nice -- might bleed a bit before results, but it's (mostly) a binary outcome on results. How many shares do you have total?
I listened to that response too, and the way I interpreted it was if there was a hiccup with the FDA or with the enrolled patients/dosing/etc. I think it was the typical, we can't control how life works 100%, so I can't guarantee 100% that the trial will start as soon as expected. I didn't read into it too much either way, but who knows.
Haha, I can't speak to that. What would be your timeframe for $5B vs. $10B? Less about timing post-results and more about a bidding war?
My mistake on the monotherapy part, Oren, thanks for the clarification. My reasoning behind 5B more likely than 10B was that the buyout multiple has to be palatable to BP. So the question is, where is VBLT before the BO offer. Don't get me wrong, I would like nothing more than to see a KITE-sized BO, but just trying to be realistic.
Perhaps part of the reason at Phase 3 VBLT is still only around $200MM is because A) bias towards non-U.S. companies B) the shaky IPO a while back C) difficulty in success with rGBM. Hoping all three of those things are no longer an issue post-results.
We're at 200MM market cap now. Let's assume a little run up before results gets us to 250MM market cap. Very positive results and the market cap goes up to $400-650MM market cap, and then $1B for FDA approval. I could see a buyout for $5B max after positive results or FDA approval. I don't see how VBLT gets to $10B BO without success in other indications first, along with marketing and manufacture of VB-111 in the U.S. I'm comparing it to past acquisitions and I don't see how we get to 35-50x current market cap by the end of 2018. Maybe 10-30x. I'm also thinking because this hasn't been tested as a monotherapy at this point; it's still in conjunction with Avastin. Let me know your assumptions.
Nice catch -- sounds like a great strategic move.
Perhaps by "early" what they mean is that they just need this one Phase III trial under SPA and that's it
Were there a lot of negative posts on Inspire/Facebook? I'm searching now, but I see some positive stuff on Inspire, still looking.
Actually I understand decently well after a second listen, not much new information. There was a part about some patients 'liking it' (maybe not the exact translation) and one living 40+ months. That people are surviving longer. Also CEO saying he wants to get this quickly to market because people are dying. Mentions that they're working on other indications. Newscaster says FDA needs to see more data before this goes to market.
Nice find! Sent to my mom from Israel (my Hebrew's not quite good enough), though we do have Oren on this board and I believe he's from Israel. He could probably tell us if there were any good nuggets.
While I'm glad to hear you're that bullish (I have 3620 shares), did you put your entire net worth in VBLT? If you're 100% sure that's the only way to go :) If you're less than 100%, then it would make sense to have slight caution.
Good points (re: Oren/Staccani) that they say it's ongoing or asked during normal Q&A. So keeping my eye out for ongoing updates, even if there is no PR.
Can you point to a place where they said they would make an announcement when they hit a certain number of events? I'll I've read is that they will analyze data and announce end of Q1 2018. If they tell us when predefined events are hit, we would already know the result of Phase 3 (assuming that the control arm performs similar to historic averages).