RXII’s stock price and warrants started makin unprecedented moves upward Thursday. RXII usually trades a few thousand shares, but Thursday it traded around 200,000 shares, and Friday, over Two Million shares. Normally the warrants trade only a few thousand shares, or sometimes none at all. Friday, near the end of the session they had traded over 20,000 shares, moving from $0.20 to $0.24. Then, just before the market closed, a large order was traded at $0.2025, bringing the total volume to 97,300 shares.
(My graphs and charts are not printing.)
There are a lot of catalysts for the company, and an announcement could be coming that will drive the stock upward.
First, a history of the stock.
First, RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp (RXII) took a big hit when on 16 December 2016 the company announced the pricing of a $10 million stock and warrant offering. The stock gapped down from $1.75 to $0.77.
The excise price of the warrants, based on the post-split price of the stock, allow you to buy the stock for $0.90 through 16 December 2021.
Since then the stock has traded around $0.60 - $70/share. Or around $0.30 to $0.20 below the strike price. The warrants have traded around $0.20/wt. Which means the stock price would have to rise to $1.10 or higher for the warrants to be in the money. But the stock has until 2021 to reach or exceed that price, and there is a strong possibility that it will.
The company uses RNAi (RNA interference) which is the process through which RNA molecules inhibit gene expression or translation. Other companies have tried this, but were unable to successfully deliver the molecules into the targeted cells. RXII has developed sd-rxRNA that is a self delivering RNAi molecule. Their patented molecule is able to enter the targeted cells without destroying the RNAi strand.
When patients have retinal surgery, in many cases, scars form, and at present there is no known way to prevent them. RXII’s leading drug candidate, RXI-109 is targeted to prevent this scarring. So far clinical trials have been very encouraging, although they have not yet reached stage 3 which will show how effective it really is, how safe it is, and the various safe dosages that can be used.
RXII has now completed its acquisition of MirImmune. In 2015, MirImmune exclusively licensed RXi's self-delivering RNAi technology platform to improve its ability to develop targeted cell-based therapeutics. Now with its acquisition, the combination of the two companies should greatly enhance RXII’s prospects. Previously the company had several drugs in development. Here is a graph showing how far along they were.
MirImmune was working on Ovarian cancer and Melanoma, both of which are difficult to treat. So far the combination of MirImmune’s and RXII’s therapies has been very encouraging. MirImmune is also going to be targeting other cancers. So far, however, they have not reached stage 1 in their testing, but every thing has been showing effectiveness and they should be advancing to stage 1 testing.
Catalysts
So far the RXI-109 clinical trial of scarring has shown an improvement in greater than 60% of the patients tested through six months. The results for the nine month post surgery evaluation is due to be announced.
RXXI has also been running a clinical trial for the treatment of retinal scarring in AMD (age-related macular degeneration), which is a huge market and big pharmaceutical companies that are working on AMD would be very interested in forming a joint venture with RXII if the trials, whose results will be announced later in 2017, are successful.
RXII spent ten million dollars in 2015 and nine million in 2016. At the start of 2017 they had 12 million dollars in cash, and they still have ten million dollars. So they have enough for another year of clinical testing, and if a pharmaceutical company forms a joint venture with them, they would be financially secure. So long term it looks like the warrants have an excellent chance of advancing.
But even more eminent, the huge spike in volume, on Thursday and Friday, could mean that the company is getting ready to give out a very positive announcement, possibly next week, and so insiders might be buying stock ahead of the announcement.
I started buying more shares this Thursday and Friday. I was one of the ones that ended up buying some around $0.24, actually, within five minutes of the close, and then saw that monster trade, that closed at $0.2025. However, my average price is well below $0.24, and I am thrilled with the warrants that I have obtained.
Good luck to all of you.
