Additional thoughts and comments:
PPHM appears to be in virtual lockdown on all communication. IMO this is due to Garnick fear of offending the FDA and Garnick and BOD fear of any inside info leakage that might offend the SEC. There is too much at stake to take any unnecessary risks. In some weird , paradoxical way this may be bullish.
The negative result of this policy is that a shareholder can't ask a question of IR and PPHM doesn't put out the frequent PRs of yesteryear. I suspect they may not even announce the FDA Cotara date as it is not a material fact. The inverse of this is , of course, if they do say anything it will be material.
This communication policy leads to huge stock trading volatility, rumor, and investment frustration. Look for "alpha" where PPHM actually does better than the market. If IMO, you can pick up a trend, buy the trend on dips only, as there will always be ample opportunity in this brave new world for the MMs to find reason to sell the stock down.
Taking another look at patents---the world has "suddenly" awoken to the fact that patents and IP in general have real value. Todays pickup is EK which trades for about 5-600mm valuation with patents valued at over 3 billion. Stock up 20%. The Motorola Mobility patents acquired by GOOG appear to valued at about $400,000 per patent on average (17,000 patents+). I suspect one day the world will also wake up to the value of the PPHM IP and patent position and it will come as the same "shock" it was on the Motorola deal. (It reminds me of that scene in "Casablanca" where the police chief(Claude Rains) shuts down "Rick's Cafe" because he is "shocked to find there is gambling going on" and then Sasha hands him his winnings.)
IMO another conjecture: the way this BOD acts, it has already tacitly made its deal contingent on milestones in research and FDA movement. They do not care about the stock action whatsoever. IMO this is a narrow view by mgmt and dilutive but so be it. IMO no amount of dilution ie. 10-30 million shares, matters to mgmt and BOD. The only thing that matters is getting to that tacit deal for some larger number.
It remains my opinion that Garnick did not come to "miserable little PPHM" in a random way. Therefore, my prime suspect for a deal is Genentech/Roche. My first inkling of this came in an early cc with Garnick, when he was not familiar with PPHM ATM methodology, and he assured people that PPHM would have no trouble funding their trials. IMO, if PPHM needed to borrow some money down the stretch, it will be available. So far, no need.
PPHM has an interesting presentation coming up at a Stifel Nicolaus biotech conference in Boston on Sept 7-9. Stifel is a new name for PPHM and better quality than some previous conferences. Big institutional following. Also Stifel was involved with "HALO" which is a client of Avid and Stifel was involved with Genentech as well. IMO PPHM could get lucky here and pick up some new institutional buyers particularly if they use this forum for any news. It will be interesting to see the transcript of this presentation.
Regards,
RRdog
