"I can’t talk about ProCellEx." Just a few small points. And some questions.
Poof has been posting a lot about Protalix over the last year or two but Bioasis does not have any sort of a deal with Protalix. We can speculate that Chiesi may advance their LSDs with Protalix, but that's between Chiesi and Protalix. It’s also possible that Chiesi could do that without Protalix, given that xB3-PRX-102 would be a new chemical entity.
I reported long ago that I had received a call from Dr. Deborah Rathjen on July 10, 2020, a few days after the Bioasis/Chiesi deal was announced. That was the call in which she said to me, “Maybe you should take a break from Stockhouse.” (Apparently she never read my contract or read my disclaimers. She seems rather lazy that way. But that’s another story.)
As part of that conversation with Rathjen I mentioned Chiesi’s partner, Protalix, and Protalix’s very interesting technology for manufacturing fusion proteins and other biologics. The very moment I said the word "ProCellEx" she interjected with the statement, “I can’t talk about ProCellEx.” That was it, and it pretty much ended the call.
That response was so brief, definitive, and exclamatory that it was very obvious that she was familiar with ProCellEx and could not and would not talk about it. End of discussion. I suspect it was as close to telling me not to talk about it as she dared to go. And I figured that ProCellEx was important in any conversation about Chiesi, Bioasis and xB3-LSDs.
Of course I did write about ProCellEx. My contract with Bioasis was essentially that I agreed to write anything they wanted me to write for the company and that publicly I could write about anything I wanted to write ABOUT the company as long as it didn’t break the terms of my NDAs. Anything I discovered with my own DD was fair game. That’s why I was generally never very interested in talking to the CEOs. The more they told me the less I could talk about.
I suspected that her almost panicked response to “ProCellEx” meant that it was something important, but she did her best to submerge the notion. If she was able to come anywhere close to being cool and smart on her feet then she would have found a way to not be so obvious. (She should never play poker. She has too many tells that betray her many biases, knowledge gaps and evident laziness.)
But here’s the thing. Bioasis has xB3 deals with Chiesi, Janssen, Prothena, whoever, and apparently had one with Ellipses for xB3-001. Why in old sweet dyin’-eyed Jaysus hasn’t she been able to make something of it all? Why is this stock at 1¢?
And who the hell cares what Zacks has to say about Protalix? Prophetoffactzzz is engaging in shadow boxing. He’s trying to suggest there’s something there but he won't say it. He wants youy to think it.
I have believed and have posted for almost three years that it makes some sense that Protalix would be involved, although, and I think this may be important, I could never explain why the Chiesi LSD deal was only a two-way deal between Chiesi and Bioasis and not a three-way deal that included Protalix. That remains very suspicious to me. Did Protalix nix the deal? Did Rathjen not want to talk about ProCellEx because it may have exposed a rift between Chiesi and Protalix?
And why has xB3 been played down by Rathjen despite the deals? Why have there been no developmental or regulatory milestones met and payments made? That's after almost 5 years (Prothena) and 3 years (Chiesi)?
If Prothena’s PRX012 is an xB3 drug, then why hasn’t Bioasis revealed that there is an xB3 drug in clinical trials? I mean, that news would sure be helpful to shareholders!
Why was Bioasis being sold to Midatech for next to nothing, a deal that, when announced, drove the share price to 3¢?
This is fishy beyond toleration. Call in the regulators!
jd