Off facebook:
Of all the theories about what's going on behind the scenes at Cytodyn, a potential partnership with Qilu Pharma seems to make the most sense. It's a jigsaw of a puzzle, but the pieces do seem to fit together, at least in my mind. ?
Qilu is a Chinese pharma company doing business in over 70 countries. They have publicly stated they are looking to collaborate on HIV, Oncology and Liver Diseases. Sound familiar?
Qilu is the manufacturer or Carboplatin, the drug Leronlimab is in trials with at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Ray returned to Cytodyn as VP of Licensing and Business Development in November. Dr. Ray formerly worked for Qilu Phama as their Senior VP of Licensing. He negotiated Qilu's licensing deal with Arbutus Biopharma.
Sidely Austin helped establish the company Arbutus Biopharma which eventually partnered with Qilu.
Sidley Austin is counsel for Xynomic Pharma, handling their merger with Bison Capital. Xynomic's Vice President is Yong Cui, formerly VP of R&D for Qilu.
Sidley was counsel of record in a patent dispute Janssen v. Qilu.
Sidley has offices all over the world, including Beijing and Hong Kong.
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In my opinion, a potential partnership has been in the works for some time.
Dr. Ray worked for Cytodyn before. He would not return unless there was a viable product for development.
Dr. Scott Kelly specifically mentioned China when discussing potential partnerships in the December conference call.
The Leronlimab trial with Qilu's Carboplatin could be a 'proof of concept' situation. "Let's see how your drug works!"
Sidley Austin could have been in discussions with Cytodyn regarding collaborations when the 13d nonsense started. Retaining Sidley to defend the13d takeover likely had more to do with making sure Cytodyn continued on their chosen partnership path than whether individual board members, Pourhassan in particular, remained on the board.
Pourhassan was voted back in to maintain the status quo, until the next phase. We are now in a quiet period, and Pourhassan's fund raising and stock promoting is not needed right now. All speculation aside, the fact remains, his exit package was much higher if he was fired without cause than if he resigned.
