SPCEO1 wrote: I am not sure what gets in the water around here every now and again but, like Fred said, it tends to pass over time. Despite these little outbreaks from time to time, this remains the best message board I have ever seen. But we are all just a bunch of humans who get frustrated from time to time by a variety of thing. In the end, we get back to business.
Today we have started by trading just 175 shares in the first 15 minutes. If this is an accurate reflection of investor interest in the NASH news on Monday, no matter what the company says the stock will not react much as no one appears very interested in that news. There is no build-up of excitement, no anticipation. So, there likely will be little reaction unless they do announce a partnership deal, and even then, it will depend on the terms of the deal. Personally, I am not expecting much to come of the NASH KOL event, at least from a stock perspective, but I am hoping I am wrong. If there is no partnership announcement, then there really is unlikely to be much news made for investors other than ourselves who are paying close attention. The analysts will not write up reports on it and it will be something that just vanishes into the air and we will wonder what that was all about. Maybe we will get some new science from Dr. Grinspoon's lab but it is hard to see something on that front moving the needle much at this point.
But following the NASH KOL event, the focus will return squarely to cancer where there is good reason to hope for something special possibly happening. I am not sure if the market will react to great cancer news, if we get it, with a huge move higher as we have no cancer analysts following the stock so that could limit the return early on until the word seeps out to investors in other ways. And we have to remember this is still only phase 1a data. But the biggest problem is TH has not been able to build any excitement around the stock and its intriguing prospects, despite the bull market making it about as easy to do that as ever in history. And the biggest issue is credibility of management and the board.
As a reminder, let's just look at the NASH situation which highlights how they undermined their credibility.
My best guess is the FDA told the company they were not going to give them any special treatment for a HIV NASH indication. So, that meant either dropping the whole NASH program or converting it to general NASH. They opted for the latter, which is fine, but downplayed the risks involved. Just a year ago they had their surprise NASH event with Loomba on the call to help sell the big move into general NASH. But it was such a surprise that few even heard the news and many that did pay attention were skeptical TH could get the FDA to sign off on their phase III plan. TH was clearly hoping for a bounce on this news and they did not get it, which led to the board getting really uncomfortable with the slowly dwindling cash position. The more time passed, the more freaked out the board likely got. The non-reaction of the stock to their move into general NASH had them staring into the inevitability a low priced share offering abyss. So, they went to plan B, get the FDA's approval for the phase III NASH trial and the phase I cancer trial, pump sales into the distribution system to allow them to pre-announce strong Q4 sales and start talking about a 20% type growth in future sales. That worked to a limited degree as the stock price did jump from a couple of months before. Then once the January 6th debacle occurredin Washington, DC, they panicked and quckly pulled the trigger on what has to be one of the most awful deals I have ever seen.
Post the deal, not surprisingly, the talk of 20% sales growth also quickly vanished. It was a complete lie from the start and it is just one issue causing the company's credibility to be eroded.
So, yes, they further undermined their credibility and our new CEO, who had seemed to have started strong, blew himself up with that act. Hopefully, he has learned a big lesson from that and will be able to put his reputation back together over time.
Now, despite all of that unfortunate mess, NASH might actually work in the long run if they can find a sensible way to get the trial started and not destroy shareholders in the process. But one can easily understand why new investors would be skeptical about management's willingness and ability to protect shareholders and enhance shareholder value given how they were able to take something very good (the move to the much larger general NASH market) and somehow turn it into something very bad for the stock.
But cancer can fix all of that pretty quickly if it turns out to be something very interesting. I am not sure even we who are following the company closely understand how drammatically things could take a turn for the better if the cancer phase 1a data is anything close to the pre-clinical work. But until we see the data, we have very little to go on (despite this being an open label trial where they have the freedom to share more than general effusive comments). And given the company's reputational issue with investors (I suspect Canadian investors are more turned off by TH than US investors who have not endured TH's long history like Canadians have), we who pay close attention are likely to be disappointed by any initial reaction to good phase 1a cancer news simply because TH is not part of the " Wall Street system" which kicks into gear when good news is announced by a company well entrenched in that system. They don't have the analyst coverage. They rarely get any press attention (hopefully good cancer news will change that). And the sub $5 share price and low market cap are real hindrances to institutional investors even bothering to pay attention to TH. So, the reaction to potential good news is likely to be less than we think is justified unless something changes between now and then. So far, LSA has not seemed to be the answer.
Still, cancer holds the greatest potential to change all of that as quickly as possible. If that data is as good as we think it might be, then TH's reputation and credibility will be enhanced very quickly. There is nothing like having a chance to transform a big drug market like cancer to wipe away years of credibility issues.
Maybe we will get an attractive NASH partnership announcement soon but it seems like a stretch to me. I am more in Qwerty's camp now on that - I will get excited about TH's NASH prospects again when they start the trial (assuming they don't blow us up as shareholders in the process of doing that). And one has to hope that if they cannot find an adequate partnership deal, that the board really thinks about it hard before committing to a share offering to fund it themselves, even after any cancer news may have pushed the stock higher. If potential partners are not excited by what TH has in NASH, should shareholders be excited by it? And if cancer is looking good, something only management would know at this point, why not just focus on it as NASH is already a very high risk, very long term drug development effort even before you consider the oddities of how TH amazingly got to this point in NASH.
Let's hope Monday marks the first step of TH rebuilding its credibility as they discuss frankly the various issues surrounding their NASH program. I truly hope they can convince us again (or potential partners) that, despite the warts that come with how they got here, that what they have in NASH is legit and worthy of pursuing at the right price. If they try to spin things too much, their credibility will just take another kick in the gut.
I am hoping to be surprised by a clear start to an effort to rebuild that lost credibility on Monday but, realistically, the track record does not inspire a lot of confidence on that front. They really do deserve a big ovation for getting the NASH program to the brink of starting a phase III trial but in the process of pulling that off, it created other tough issues. I hope they do not sugar coat those on Monday as that will not help them on the credibility front.
FredTheVoice wrote: Just too bad you are leaving LEE,
Just a normal and temporary thing whats going on,
Money is sleeping......
Tension is high without news on NASH and CANCER,
Do you remember the level of tension just before TROG approval here......hey....
Lets hope fall will bring clarity very soon,
GLTA
F.