MI Den:
I was on the fence whether NWBO would stay independent, my thinking also has changed. I figured maintaining the possibility of remaining independent was among other things to create a bargaining position so that a couple of big pharma could not illegally conspire to hold down buyout price and/or as an ultimate fallback. Which certainly could have been or even still could be the case.
But where are the “tells” to keep the threat of going it alone viable? There are plenty of things NWBO could have done - added BOD members with company build- out capabilities, hire or line up consultants and a dozen more that would not amount to any more of a disclosure than other things that have happened. And while some of those could have been done without publicity, what is the point of a "private threat" if that's not an oxymoron anyway?
As time passes there either need to be active measures to demonstrate the ability to remain independent AND build a company, or not.
Last effort there was IMO FlaskWorks.
The Co as you point out are doing nothing preparatory to building a manufacturing company - capacity, talent, marketing - nothing. And as more time passes any realistic threat is eroding pretty fast.
I think management played that hand as long as they needed to in order to get what LP and her Team feel is an acceptable BO offer. More specifically I think that pretty quickly after the Co became unblinded -- the results were compelling and they NDA’ed the results to one or more qualified buyers and reached a deal in principle pretty quickly.
As far as explaining the strenuous info lockdown- the buyer would have essentially the identical interest in the most effective rollout as does NWBO.
LP and the managers I am aware of have no apparent expertise at building an operating manufacturer and provider of biotherapeutics - buying Cognate is NOT experience in creating a major biopharmaceutical company. And why the heck would she want to do that?
LP wants to make DC Vax the SOC for hard tumor cancers - the next step in bringing DC Vax to market for glioblastomas. Where is the best spot for her to do that? At NWBO while building a biotherapeutic from scratch? Or paid off for her 100s of millions of shares and as part of a major pharma with all the support in the world?
IMO. GLTAL.
