sulaco, I understand what you are saying. I really do.
I know you don't think I was comparing my knowledge with that of Jed Wolcott's. But Jed has had to throw in the towel on some of the largest biotech trials -- even as the investors thought that his very testing of their product was a sign that there was something significant being produced by their company. So simply throwing out a researcher's name as if it lends some kind of magical quality to the biologic he is testing simply is not logical. Is he still researching BAVI? I don't know. Do you? Will we be told in a timely manner that he is no longer researching BAVI? I don't know; do you?
But regardless of who's still researching BAVI, the optimists on this Board have to contend with the fact that management has not given us a crumb of hard evidence that there's more to this story after so many years. They leave us only with more questions: questions that are answered hypothetically by writers who offer optimistic scenarios; these are good people but they are generally the same good people who assured us that SUNRISE was a slam dunk.
When I hear, for instance, that King said in the catastrophic presser in February that BAVI had performed as expected, there has been an entire narrative of hope created which would lead one to believe that he was signaling that BAVI continues on the path to success. Yet, in that same presser, he said that the termination of SUNRISE was a huge disappointment. He gave no qualifications to that statement. One could argue, I guess, that his relating that BAVI testing would continue with immuno synergies was indirectly stating that the path to success is still on the straight and narrow. But he never said that. We are left with conjecture, but nothing more.
You make the failure of SUNRISE to be a small blip on a radar screen. It wasn't: not for this company. A lot of scarce resources were poured into this trial. We hung, in the investment world (ask the Board member who wrote the excellent stories about BAVI on Seeking Alpha), the reputation of BAVI on this Phase III. Added to the other negative perceptions of the Street regarding this company and this was a solid hit to the hull of the USS PPHM. Can the damage be repaired? I wouldn't rule it out, but I am overloaded with skepticism.
My slim retention of an ounce of hope hangs on the possibility that, for whatever reason, BAVI requires more time to work than what its been given the ability to demonstrate. This was offered as a possibility after the failure with whatever the Defense Department was using it to test as well as something to do (years ago) with either pancreatic or liver cancer (I cannot remember).
I agree with you that the field is too dynamic for outlandish expectations. But that argument works against us as well. The field of cancer research is moving so quickly that whatever BAVI can or cannot do may be obsolete by the time it registers any hard successes.
Bottom line: a small biotech does not throw its meager resources into a very rare Phase III lightly (unless this management is even more inept that what I even have considered). Forcing a small biotech like PPHM to shutdown a trial in the biotech investment world is devastating. I don't think this point has been made sufficiently clear.
I'm in no position, by the way, to call anyone a fool. I've stuck with this investment since 2000. I've read your posts pre-February and admired your putting yourself on the line in defense of BAVI and PPHM. I've just reached a different conclusion 10 weeks after the SUNRISE shutdown. I hope and pray that I'm wrong. I just cannot mentally embrace an optimistic scenario regarding BAVI at this juncture. AVID is real. BAVI is a potential citizen in a far away country. Sell BAVI (if it's even possible) and turn PPHM into a manufacturing power house. I think that is the best investment going forward.
Good luck to you and all of us.
