Magician Goren. Can He Pull The Rabbit Out Of The Hat?
For those of us that have been here since the beginning....no not 5 years ago, but I mean February, when things really heated up for this little stock. We were the talk of the exchange for a few weeks, and even traded 264 million shares in the month of March allowing the stock price to touch 33.5 cents. Before February this little company had $83,000 left and was trading at 3 cents. The run up allowed them to cash in a chunk of outstanding warrants placing roughly $1.45 million in the bank.
Speculation ran wild during those times as this little Israeli company was one of the initial 28 companies listed on the WHO vaccine candidates list as a potential solution to this new pandemic the world faced. Would the company partner up with a major pharma like many were doing at the time? After all, the company’s CEO was an ex executive that had worked years at both Pfizer and AstraZeneca. It almost seemed like a sure bet to some of us.
February and March were fun months to be part of this stock. You could count on some sort of update almost weekly. Patents were being filed, Website was overhauled, and preclinical work was progressing. The market was a very unstable place at that time, but “Rona stocks” were the safe place to be. They were at times the only green play of the day. We always had that carrot being dangled of opening up to an “Epic Halt” as the CEO was “evaluating partnerships “.
The sizzle phase slowly wound down as we entered a phase of few updates as this little company seemed to chose a different path. No partnership announcement came. They appeared to be going it alone. They were not going to team up with a Pharma major at this point to speed up the process. Were they crazy? They only consisted of a small team of under 10 employees. This was a race many investors thought and our horse suddenly became a pony. What was our jockey thinking?
May 5th, was a key date. The company strikes its first “partnership “ with the Tel Aviv SOURASKY MEDICAL CENTER. It gave this small company access to their blood bank and lab, leveling the playing field somewhat to what the major vaccine players had access to in this race, all for little cost as our CEO stated “ The company does not anticipate the need to raise additional finances to finance this work.” The stock price enjoyed a brief one day blip up to 17.5 cents and settled back to 14 shortly after.
Oh, but we did need money. Lots of it. From my research, a phase 1 clinical trial could cost in the range of $5 million dollars. The CEO knew this and 3 weeks later announced a private placement to raise $3 million dollars. Some investors were not happy, see the dilution coming and the price dips touching as low as 7.5 cents. Two months later, two extensions....the CEO announces the private placement is cancelled due to “market conditions “. What the hell does that mean? A couple of us emailed the CEO asking for a further explanation and both got back a “maximize shareholder value” explanation.
One can only speculate. The CEO during various interviews has also mentioned the company was seeking funding and we know the company is in talks with the government of Canada concerning this matter. See here. Vaxil Biotherapeutics / LESTER SCHEININGER, Consultant - Registration - Consultant - Lobbyists Registration System - Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada
The drought phase from April till now I will call it. We “long term” holders have been waiting on news from the lab. Do we have what it takes? Can we advance to phase 1 along with 33 other Candidates that have already made the jump, putting us near the lead pack with our little pony? Last week, August 27th the company announced the rat testing results will be announced in 4 to 6 weeks after they examine the data.
It truly is a David vs. Goliath fight. Our little company could suddenly jump in the limelight with the likes of the multi billion dollar pharma companies that have thousands of employees and multi billion dollar bank accounts backing their projects.
Did our CEO choose the right path? He surely could of used his connections and teamed up early, perhaps selling us out short? He choose to go it alone and prove that our “sauce” was the real deal, knowing the further he proves this alone, the greater the value of this sauce.
A quick look on SEDI and you will see insiders control roughly 18% of the shares, with the CEO owning 4.6 million options at 9 cents. When the stock ran up to 33.5 cents back in March....not one single insider share was sold.
The drought phase is nearing its end as it is make or break for this little company and its CEO in the hunt for the vaccine. The rat experiment results are only 3.5 to 5.5 weeks away and will paint the picture going forward for this companies Covid play. Kind of great timing perhaps as it appears Wave 2 is on its way.
Welcome new investors. You arrived at a critical time where you can buy a ticket at a discount compared to the many already out there.