I think we need to consider when the decision was made to present at SNO. I will assume that the company agreed to Dr. Liau submitting the Abstract, and I'd be guessing the decision may have dated back to July or August. From the time the Abstract was submitted I believe whatever Journal was peer reviewing the submission would have been told and the Journal would be withheld until the rules of the organization where the presentation allowed it to be published.
I don't know the status of the Journal back when the decision was made to present at SNO, but once it was made the publication would clearly have to be put off until SNO rules permitted it, I believe that could be any time this week.
I think we also need to think about what the company has been up to in the last two years since they declared the quiet period. A lot of people seem to believe we're still a year or more away from approval by any regulator. I'd like to suggest another possibility. If they were working in a program that all four regulators work together under silence as a requirement of being in the program it's possible that all regulatory submissions are nearing completion. In the case of the U.K. where the PIP and inspection of the commercial facility must be requested prior to submitting for approval we know that has been done. If all other regulators have all requirements rolled into the complete application, no one outside the company and it's contractors know the status of the applications, not even whether they're rolling applications or not. Anything is possible.
If I'm right about the Journal being out by the time Dr. Liau speaks I also believe that shortly thereafter we'll get the official TLD statement and announcement of the Annual Meeting. That will end the quiet period officially, but the company may not be able to speak about what's being done with the regulators if there are terms requiring they remain silent about that. I'm sure we'll get some of the information we'd all like to know, but not everything. I've never been an investor in a company that provided all the information investors wanted to hear.
We should know a great deal more a week from today, and perhaps we'll get some PR's from the company shortly thereafter, perhaps before the bell on Monday. Let's give it the time and see what happens but remember one thing, once the decision was made to appear at SNO the publication of the Journal was postponed by the rules they all play by.
Gary
