RE:I spoke with LaFond this morningI remember a former V-P, Pirazelli, he sold a lot of shares around 2.00$ during the waiting for Ibalizumab phase III results. I think he was V-P pharmaceutical development or something like that, so more on the scientific side of things, and as we know the SP went to 14$ a few months after that. You would be surprised how many of these V-P are not investors at all. They don't do analysis, they don't know science, and are not aware of what's going on in clinical trials. And again, they are not right now in blackout period, at least Lafond is not, so it means he is not aware of any privileged infos about the trial. Marie-Noel Colussi is another V-P that has options with a cheap exercise price. She is there since forever. I worked for biotech companies. You would be amazed how little non scientific employees understand about what the company is doing, this includes non scientific V-P. Lafond has very little understanding of this whole oncology program. I don't blame him for that, he is a lawyer and he was burned before, and they have limited windows to trade the stock. He took his money in the middle of the summer. That's OK. Again, it comes with this stupid stock options program. That's an awful way to compensate V-Ps. If SORT1+ is a success, Marsolais would deserve an very big bonus, but that's about it.
SPCEO1 wrote: Our new head of IR kindly put together a quick call with Jocelyn, which was appreciated given the negative impact of this news.
Jocelyn indicated these options are part of their compensation package and he was just selling them to add to his compensation and because the expration data is not far off. He greatly regrets not exercising them when the stock hit its high in 2018 (I told him we can all relate to that, unfortunately). When asked about the timing in light of the potential for additional good phase 1b cancer news coming before the 12/20/22 expiration of these very low cost options, he really did not address that. He noted the trading volume is low so maybe he did not want to be in a position where he exercised them on the last day and then sold into a low volume market? But there are ways to handle that.
Obviously, these are very low cost shares and the 53% tax hit is huge. So, the most bullish response is an executive excercises low cost options, pays his huge taxes out of his pocket and holds onto all of the shares. The next best option for investors like us is to see him only sell the amount of shares needed to cover the tax hit. The worst option is to see all the exercised shares be sold, which is what we have in this case. Offsetting thsi clear negative is Jocelyn has not sold off his 18,000 shares he currently owns outright (not option exposure). He noted he got burned financially in the past exercising previous options and paying the taxes out of his pocket, so once burned twice shy?
So, there is no way around the fact that this does not look great. Only Jocelyn and Christian still own these very low cost options given out many years ago when the company was hanging on by a thread. Jocelyn has 105,000 left and Christian still has 125,000 left. My impression is we will see more filings from Jocelyn in the days to come and we obviously will see all of these options exercised sometime between now and 12/20/22. So, all eyes are now on Christian - if he exercises and sells before any new cancer development, that will be an even worse look than this. If he exercises, pays the taxes out of his own pocket and holds the shares, that would be a very bullish look.
Right now, however, we have the first insider sale in several years coming right after good news on cancer and no insider buying. It is not a good look. Christian - we await your next move. Paul, Philippe, the board - the lack of buying is now deafening. THTX's main problem with investors is the lack credibility and unless there is some insider buying soon, Elif's job just got even harder to rebuild that lost credibility.