Two Important TakeawaysFirst, the financing we all know is coming is largely focused on dealing with the convertible although I would not be shocked if they raised more than $57.5 million needed to redeem the convert. NASH is on hold and TH has the cash it needs for the phase 1b trial. If a phase 2 trial gets started later this year, I suspect they have the cash for that as well (at elast to get it started). Debt seems to be the preferred option for taking care of the convert but it is possible something else more elaborate might be utilized. They likely also anticipate some cash coming into the coffers once a Chinese partnership is finalized. Since they believe they can take one cancer type to approval themselves, TH's interest in partnerring in the US or Europe seems minimal (since they are at least loosely using the IMMU model at this point - get one cancer type approved and sell to big pharma for a big price and let them do the rest). The reason I am wondering about exactly what TH might have up their financing sleeve (versus just doing a straight debt offering as they have mentioned in the past) is because they indicated last week they were confident that new analysts would pick up coverage. The only thingI cann conclude is they will be doing some financing soon to eliminate concerns about their ability to redeem the convert but what shape that financing might take remains to be seen. I am not sensing they will be adding a lot of new equity to the equation, however, but I am really in the dark about what they are up to.
Second, is the possibility of ten cycles of treatment and the comment that TH-1902 does not target bone marrow like other chemo drugs. This appears to be the reason for the relative lack of cumulative toxicity, which is what allows for as many as 10 treatments. While someone hear, I think Qwerty, speculated that patient #2 might have had a chance to go10 cycles in phase 1a, I think that is a stretch. But who knows - if that patient survived and if they were able to continue on past the 420mg problems, I suppose iti is possible. But we will not know until they tell us. My guess is that comment was just Christian looking at the bloodwork from patients in the pahse 1a and seeing in that the potential to go ten cycles.
But if we get a non-dilutive debt financing and get data at AACR in late June that shows the potential for the drug to be both effective and be used over a longer period of time, the stock price is going a lot higher. We got some good hints last week on both situations - we await the actual facts. But things certainly seem to be leaning in the right direction.