Elite Pharmaceuticals Inc (ELTP)

[no2koolaid]

While the PFE story is intriguing, it is speculative. Reasonable? Perhaps. But investors need to make sure they correctly frame the story. Nasrat has become most careful about what he says and, to be crystal clear, he never said he met with representatives from Pfizer. From the CC transcript...https://seekingalpha.com/article/4470089-elite-pharmaceuticals-inc-eltp-ceo-nasrat-hakim-on-q2-2022-results-earnings-call-transcript

here is what he said...

What I'm trying to tell you here in simple terms is that anti-abuse technology is constantly on my mind. Frankly, someone asked about us contacting Pfizer to make COVID-19 tablets or capsules. We contacted Pfizer as recently as couple of weeks ago via our business development, and intermediary. But it wasn't about COVID. It's about our technology, because that is one thing that I do not talk about, because we have not gotten anything that we can report to you guys on. But it is definitely always on my mind.

This was a third party emissary who likely had access to certain key people in PFE, which enabled an inquiry by Elite. Based on his mention of PFE, I expect Nasrat is awaiting a response that will come before the next CC. So, we should expect some information (and I intend on asking for it, since he mentioned their name multiple times in the call. Actually, their name comes up five times, though the context centers on three issues, only two of which offer an avenue for opportunity and both would center on Elite's tech).

One more point to end the year on...COLL has insurance to cover its business and its product liability. Its products are opioids. Any litigation they would face is covered by the insurance, minus the premium and expenses. As Nasrat noted, ELTP clearly has business insurance but could not get insurance to cover opioid liability. Again, from the CC transcript...

So insurance is a major problem for us. They insure us on everything else, but they will not insure us on opioids. They call it opioid exclusion. So they give us product liability, we're insured right now for Elite. But if we do opioids, then that section is not accepted. Okay. And we will have to fend for ourselves and pay for that ourselves. So that's the second thing. And the third is finding a sales and marketing partner who's willing to sell these products and risk themselves also for lawsuits and insurance issues. That's been our issue

Now, if we believe what we read from the transcript, Elite is willing to launch an anti-abuse ER opioid at risk under certain conditions. Here is what Nasrat said...

So by the way, for example, if we were working on Oxy ER anti-abuse, if Pfizer did not. The profits from such a product will be high enough that I would be willing to take the risk. And I would launch at risk. And there are a few other things that I have already thought of that we do to mitigate that risk. But I definitely would be willing to take a chance if there was enough money coming in to hire the best lawyers, I know that we can pay them and at the end of the day, we'll end up prevailing because in my mind, I know which steps we need to go through to prevail during these lawsuits.

This is contrary to past statements in the CC's where Nasrat unequivocally put SOX on the shelf. But, let me point out what he said in the above is not about SOX - an abuse resistant IR opioid...he said...Oxy ER anti-abuse! This does cause one to ponder the future for Elite and it should also make clear that Nasrat has been more strategic than he has been credited for being.

If we add the following to the fog of the verbiage from the CC...

The answer is yes, we are doing well and on target. We have a product that's filed and we expect approval in Q1, Q2 of next year. We have multiple products at different stages of development, couple of that will be ready for clinical trials within the first half of next year and a couple will do them probably during the second half, part of it be the formulations will be more ready and part of it also financial. We also have other development products at the formulation and stability stage.

...when combined with the Dexcel partnership, 2022 looks to be setting up as Elite's best year ever. It will set new highs for quarterly and annual revenues, while moving new business development along at a pace that makes 2023 all that I believe it will be.

Happy New Year!
N2K