Versartis, Inc. (VSAR)

[longx]

Convenient for you to exclude R&D expenses. The September quarter alone was 42 mil (correct, not 4.2 mil). The R&D for the December quarter is likely to be less but also likely to be meaningful % to equity. Yes, there will be R&D expenses per last earning announcement.
"All ongoing clinical trials of somavaratan will conclude by the end of 2017"

I was talking about the 10-Q Balance Sheet. R/D expense was not a part of the balance sheets, but it's listed in the 10-Q Statements of Operations. But if you really understand the data on the balance sheets, you would know that that R/D expense was in fact already included in the accumulated deficit. The point I tried to state in the post was that Versartis balance sheets became much more solid after the announcement on 01/08/2018. After $40M (or over $1/share) to be removed from liabilities and added to cash assets.

R/D expense in Q3/2017 @ $42M was the all-time high due the clinical trials closure. This same expense in the previous quarter (Q2/2017) was only $28.6M, and in the same Q3/2017 was only $20M.

Regarding to the cost for the ongoing clinical trials; there are only 2 left administered by Versartis: The VISTA trial which comes which 300 participants and the other AGHD which comes with only 30 participants. However, in last E/R, Versartis management stated that "... the VISTA long-term safety study in pediatric GHD will conclude at the end of October; further clinical development of somavaratan in AGHD is on hold." (BTW, a copy of this text can be found under Corporat Update section via this link), given this, the clinical cost should be insignificant.

Professional fees for strategy alternative is not free. Keeping the lights on and people sitting in their desk are not cheap.

Versatis management definitely has done a great job in preserving the cash by immediately reducing 2/3 of workforce and keeping only key management positions for the transition. Given the number of employees reported last quarter at 59 (see this link), assume that those employees making $15K/month, then the cost for paying 20 employees in the last 3 months should be under $1M.

Liquidation will take significant amounts of time to complete and will incur a lot of professional fees for various area, penalty charges for various early contract termination, reserve set aside. The $2.35 cash liquidation value is a puffy dream.

What's a clumsy exaggeration! Did you really take a look at the balance sheet before writing this? Versartis assets are mostly in cash, the only asset which is not easily liquidated is equipments property listed at $861K, which is just insignificant compared to the total asset of $135M. With the small number of employees and only one drug in pipeline, those fee/penalties you mentioned/concerned are almost non-existing!

Since Somavaratan is still an effective drug (it's just that it's not as good as Pfizer's Genotropin), the possibility of the company to be dissolved and led to cash distribution is still very small. So, I'm looking forward to seeing the merge/acquisition to be announced before or in the upcoming quarterly E/R.

Versartis' Somavaratan Still Has A Path Forward; Cantor Reiterates Buy
https://www.benzinga.com/analyst-ratings/analyst-color/17/09/10089620/versartis-somavaratan-still-has-a-path-forward-cantor-r