Saturday, January 02, 2016 8:07:10 AM
a few thoughts from an old timer (1994)
great post, MH.
You are spot on, I also think that it's short of a miracle that PPHM was able to recruit enough patients for
phase III. Also amazing is the fact that they were able to salvage the botched data in the first place.
Eb's post on his hospital tour (thanks eb) makes PPHM's achievement even bigger. I find the fact that big pharma is setting up a database for $ 2000 a patient a good thing in principle but quite disturbing if you think of the consequences. Doctors will be biased towards the big guys even more and steer patients towards BP's clinical trials. The conflicts of interest are too obvious. I hope the FDA will keep an eye on this.
My thougts on the subjects most talked about:
On IB: I spent the most time of my business life working for the likes of the Morgan Stanleys of this world.
I can tell you one thing, the big guys don't care for a small biotech company with a market cap of 250MM. Period. Not for M & A and not for research. We are still way below the radar.
I would not read too much into Piper dropping us. They probably saw that they would not get any business from PPHM.
On charts: I honestly thing that the chart business is humbug, especially for a micro cap. As we used to say: you never see a rich chartist.....
On "naked shorting" and "institutional ownership": Don't waste your ink on this. There are no real institutions in the stock. No real institution can buy penny stocks. And nobody in his right mind would short such a stock. Your downside is way bigger than your upside. But happy for anyone who want to go short, that will help the longs when it turns.
On SK: met him a couple of times ages ago here in Switzerland, once for an investor meeting and once when he went to the PSI. (www.psi.ch). I can only tell you that he is a hard working, honest, normal guy, very much down to earth.
On BOD: do some people contributing to this chat really think we can afford a dozen nobel laureates for the BOD? Dream on. But I am very happy to have Garnick associated with the company. He has more money that he can spend, so his motives are not greed. He believes in the science.
On insider ownership: these guysare not rich, they can't afford to buy tons of shares, that's why they have options
On ATM: To all people angry about the ATM: how on earth do you think a small biotech can finance itself? By playing the Kansas Lottery? When I first invested we had 18MM share outstanding. Before RS! I got diluted 50 times but I am not complaining. Partly because I was lucky enough to be in the 2000 run up. At least we have Avid where we can make some money. And don't come up with BP giving us a ton of cash. Would you really sell our IP for pennies? It's too early for that.
Conclusions: PPHM is well positioned. There are not many small Biotechs out there with a 250MM market cap. with a phase III trial and way more stuff behind it. Avid is a bonus, nice to have.
Small Biotechs are the extended RD of BP. BP will only do a deal when they are sure the product has a good chance to work. Can you imagine the head of acquisitions of a BP who would have done a multi billion $ deal with THLD 6 months ago?
And PPHM is clever enough not to give away the company now just before the finishing line.
We are under the radar but that can change faster than you can say "clone". I remember early 2000. When the stock shot up with huge volume we were in every paper, in every Nasdaq statistic an so on.
We need good PRs and good data to get the stock above 500MM market cap and more importantly over 5$.
The trigger back then was a PR about angiogenesis. It was the flavor of the month and PPHM issued a "mee too" PR.
Personally I tripled my position, maybe one day I will have to thank that CSM/Fargo tart that she enabled me to average down.
Good luck to all and happy 2016
danny
great post, MH.
You are spot on, I also think that it's short of a miracle that PPHM was able to recruit enough patients for
phase III. Also amazing is the fact that they were able to salvage the botched data in the first place.
Eb's post on his hospital tour (thanks eb) makes PPHM's achievement even bigger. I find the fact that big pharma is setting up a database for $ 2000 a patient a good thing in principle but quite disturbing if you think of the consequences. Doctors will be biased towards the big guys even more and steer patients towards BP's clinical trials. The conflicts of interest are too obvious. I hope the FDA will keep an eye on this.
My thougts on the subjects most talked about:
On IB: I spent the most time of my business life working for the likes of the Morgan Stanleys of this world.
I can tell you one thing, the big guys don't care for a small biotech company with a market cap of 250MM. Period. Not for M & A and not for research. We are still way below the radar.
I would not read too much into Piper dropping us. They probably saw that they would not get any business from PPHM.
On charts: I honestly thing that the chart business is humbug, especially for a micro cap. As we used to say: you never see a rich chartist.....
On "naked shorting" and "institutional ownership": Don't waste your ink on this. There are no real institutions in the stock. No real institution can buy penny stocks. And nobody in his right mind would short such a stock. Your downside is way bigger than your upside. But happy for anyone who want to go short, that will help the longs when it turns.
On SK: met him a couple of times ages ago here in Switzerland, once for an investor meeting and once when he went to the PSI. (www.psi.ch). I can only tell you that he is a hard working, honest, normal guy, very much down to earth.
On BOD: do some people contributing to this chat really think we can afford a dozen nobel laureates for the BOD? Dream on. But I am very happy to have Garnick associated with the company. He has more money that he can spend, so his motives are not greed. He believes in the science.
On insider ownership: these guysare not rich, they can't afford to buy tons of shares, that's why they have options
On ATM: To all people angry about the ATM: how on earth do you think a small biotech can finance itself? By playing the Kansas Lottery? When I first invested we had 18MM share outstanding. Before RS! I got diluted 50 times but I am not complaining. Partly because I was lucky enough to be in the 2000 run up. At least we have Avid where we can make some money. And don't come up with BP giving us a ton of cash. Would you really sell our IP for pennies? It's too early for that.
Conclusions: PPHM is well positioned. There are not many small Biotechs out there with a 250MM market cap. with a phase III trial and way more stuff behind it. Avid is a bonus, nice to have.
Small Biotechs are the extended RD of BP. BP will only do a deal when they are sure the product has a good chance to work. Can you imagine the head of acquisitions of a BP who would have done a multi billion $ deal with THLD 6 months ago?
And PPHM is clever enough not to give away the company now just before the finishing line. We are under the radar but that can change faster than you can say "clone". I remember early 2000. When the stock shot up with huge volume we were in every paper, in every Nasdaq statistic an so on.
We need good PRs and good data to get the stock above 500MM market cap and more importantly over 5$.
The trigger back then was a PR about angiogenesis. It was the flavor of the month and PPHM issued a "mee too" PR.
Personally I tripled my position, maybe one day I will have to thank that CSM/Fargo tart that she enabled me to average down.
Good luck to all and happy 2016
danny
