SPCEO1 wrote: The strategy may have even gotten worse since the arrival of the new CEO and the IR person. Both came from big phara companies and how they view themselves is naturally from that perspective. They certainly did not join TH to start chasing retail investors. They see themselves as a legit company that should be repsected by institutional investors (as well as the FDA) and they act accordingly. Institutional investors may not even disagree with that but they also cannot buy TH with is tiny market cap, even if they wanted to. And they may want to. I would not be surprised if there are some institutional investors who are really hyped up about the cancer opportunity and would love to get a big slug of the stock in a directed offering to themselves. That is likely what the Chairwomen was hinting at the AGM and what the CEO was hinting at when he said they have many ways to raise money at a recent broker presentation. One reason the stock may not have fallen much recently during the tax loss selling season is that these investors are patiently picking up the shares tax loss sellers are offloading since the company seems to be in no rush to sell them shares privately.
Their communications around the NASH announcement in September was a failure, obviously. The communications about the timing of the NASH protocol submission have also been less than ideal While technically not a material event, for many investors, this protocol submission was/is a material event as you suggest and it would have served them well to find a way to communicate it. But there are likely aspects to this process that they are not anxious to set our clocks ticking and pressuring them on why the FDA has not responded yet. Clearly, the FDA may well have some questions and the process may take longer than normal, so by not telling us when the process actually started, they won't have to address why it took so long to resolve as we really will not be able to be certain that it took longer than expected since we did not know when the clock started ticking. By making the whole process fuzzy to investors, that gives them some wiggle room in how they characterize the outcome.
I suspect the commercial failings of Egrifta and Trogarzo are not too big a deal to US based investors, most of whom were not paying any attention at all to Egrifta. Trogarzo's shortfalls are probably in the back of some US investor's minds. Even so, I doubt this will be a huge stumbling block for the stock once the two trials are started.
One issue the company has is that Egrifta and Trogarzo sales are still there and both management and analysts covering the stock feel compelled to address them when in actuality, they should have only a small role to play in the stock's future performance, which is tied to clincal success in NASH and cancer. The sooner the CEO stops trying to convince the market that he is going to reinvigorate Trogarzo and Egrifta sales the better. It only leads to analysts putting unrealistic sales estimates into their models which, in turn, lead to the analysts publishing reports each quarter with reductions to their forecasts and lowered price targets. I half want Paul to come out and say "Our current two drugs are really not that impressive and the outlook for sales of both are limited". Then every quarter the surprise would be on the upside rather than the downside when those two drug's sales are semi-decent instead of horrible like the analysts have modelled. Maybe the company really believes they can significantly reinvigorate the sales of those drugs - if so they should ignore this advice. But count me as a skeptic that hopes to be proven wrong. My main point is that no one is likely to buy TH's stock based on Egrifta for lipo and Trogarzo sales, even if they are a bit better than what analysts think they might be. Cancer and NASH are the reasons for someone to buy TH's stock as that is what could transform the company into what the CEO and IR director are already acting like it is.
There is no doubt TH's stock price could be much, much higher right now had they played the retail game in the current bubble environment. I wish they could have come up with a strategy that would have at least partialy tapped into that crazed bubble mania even while maintaining their institutional bonafides, but that did not happen and is not likely to happen either. First, the bubble will likely soon burst and all the stocks lifted by it will collapse and, second, TH is pretty close to being a phase III NASH player with a very impressive cancer program which will likely propel the company's stock price considerably higher and give institutional investors a chance to actually buy the stock (via both the inevitable offering of stock and just by buying it on the market as well).
I would again point out that TH had a very impressive 2020, even if the stock seemed to iss out on that fact. A lot was accomplished and little was screwed up. If they can build on that in 2021 with NASH and cancer success, the stock will not only make up for 2020 but also likely have a little bubble of its own even if the market bubble has popped.
scarlet1967 wrote: I believe in decency and honesty and I don't suggest THTX to engage in any dubious activities, my point is their strategy to support the valuation hasn't changed despite the arrival of the new CEO.
Let's face it the execution has been slow , the communication is confusing thus far.
If you really want to get the SP to appreciate you have to start at right end which is the retail, get the attention of mom and dad investors, therefore they need to engage with the average investor earn their trust, increase the demand/daily volume then go after institutional investors.
They first announced HIV NASH opportunity a year and half ago, last September they announced the shift to general NASH which was supposed to be submitted in few weeks and then radio silence!
nothing more than it will be submitted by end of the year as per IP.
point is they need to be more precise and stop hiding behind words such as few weeks/imminent also they need to speed up as the progress has been far to slow, I get it they need to perfect the applications in order to enhance the success rate but while the competitors are progressing THTX has been far to slow.
I still struggle to understand why they don't think submission of both protocols is not material event for this company, maybe that is true for other companies with great track record but THTX needs to come out of hiding and market their programs in a proper manner so we get those investors which are not convinced atm.