- BioCryst Pharma: Correcting 1 Point
- Extreme ‘Ahora!’ -- Great Panther & Endeavour Silver
- Scheduled Mine Tours: Avanti, GBG, Ghana
BioCryst Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: BCRX) spoke with Ticker Trax this week. Robert Bennett, executive vice president for business development and investor relations, points out one correction to our report earlier in the week.
--Peramivir, the company’s antiviral treatment for influenza, has been shown in Asian trials to be at least as effective as an intravenous treatment for so-called “swine flu” than another antiviral currently on the market. I wrongly interpreted the end point of the Shionogi & Co. Phase III study in Japan and South Korea.
Mr. Bennett tells us, “The end point of the Shionogi Phase 3 study was non-inferiority for time to alleviation of symptoms. Both the 300 mg and 600 mg doses met this endpoint compared to (Roche antiviral treatment) Tamiflu, as outlined in the press release. Non-inferiority was the desired result and this was a good outcome. The study was not designed to demonstrate superiority.”
In terms of statistical significance of peramivir for H1N1 virus, the term non-inferiority is “similar within a statistical confidence level,” Mr. Bennett explains. I apologize for jumping the gun on this data point – I over-generalized the outcome of the human trial.
On a related topic, BioCryst’s Bennett tells me that 200,000 is the typical number of U.S. hospitalized influenza patients each year, as reported by the Department of Health & Human Services. In our report earlier this week (please see password-secure archives), I plucked out of my head the figure five million to 10 million intravenous doses of peramivir that one day might be accumulated by various governments for stockpiling – in the event the H1N1 virus becomes nastier in terms of virulence than it already is.
The number is entirely mine and based on a fraction of the percentage of people who might become hospitalized due to H1N1 influenza across the 160 or so nations reporting the flu strain.
Mr. Bennett says BioCryst has enough peramivir active pharmaceutical ingredient to treat at least 200,000 patients in the United States. He adds, “So it is reasonable to assume there are more (potential hospitalizations) on a global basis, but I don’t have a good statistical reference.”
BioCryst hopes to receive U.S. Emergency Use Authorization for peramivir, which is on its way toward approval for intravenous use in Japan. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, anticipating along with the World Health Organization a problematic influenza season in both north and south hemispheres, is providing as much as $100 million or so to BioCryst in its development of peramivir.
BioCryst is one of our eight Planetary Prospects, initially researched in this service in December 2008, when shares of the drug discovery company (leukemia, autoimmune) changed hands for $1.70 each on NASDAQ. On Thursday, the shares fell as low as $8.77 each.
BioCryst will focus Phase III clinical trials for peramivir on hospitalized patients in the United States. Primary and secondary endpoints for the trials are in development at the company’s labs in North Carolina.
In addition, BioCryst expects to receive another large payment from Japan partner Shionogi for achieving the regulatory milestone of having cleared human testing of protein inhibitor peramivir in Japan and South Korea clinical trials on hospitalized patients suffering from the H1N1 virus.
We here at home have raised our ownership of BioCryst in the past week to approximately 61,000 shares. I have no intention of selling any shares until specific developments occur – or fail to occur – regarding the company. The shares, as with our other seven Prospects, are extremely risky.
-- Ticker Trax is back from Guanajuato in Mexico, where two companies, Great Panther Resources (TSX: T.GPR) and Endeavour Silver (TSX: T.EDR and AMEX: EXK), are extending a 400-year tradition of silver mining the Veta Madre and related veins. News and earnings reports are forthcoming on several fronts from both companies, which are two of our eight Planetary Prospects.
I intend to provide full coverage of the visits, and photos (several here, including Endeavour CEO Brad Cooke above), in a coming issue – sometime after I return from a one-week holiday. We continue to accumulate shares of Great Panther and Endeavour Silver for our holdings here at home. Bob Archer’s Great Panther is experiencing large leaps in average yields of concentrate (after the milling process). The concentrate being loaded onto trucks for delivery to smelter was yielding an average 19 kilos of silver per tonne and 100 grams of gold – up from a second-quarter average of about 13 kg silver and 70 grams gold, the day I was there.
Brad Cooke’s Endeavour Silver, at the same time, is harvesting extraordinarily rich veins that the company has marked along the walls of several of its area mines in Guanajuato. By extraordinary I mean extraordinary, and I have a rock or two to show for it.
I also expect Great Panther’s recovery rates, profit margins, cash flows and its silver production from Guanajuato, one of two properties the company owns in Mexico. I can envision the shares, which sell for about half the valuation multiple (choose your metric) of neighboring Endeavour Silver, doubling in short order from their current 63 cents Canadian.
Endeavour’s shares, based on net present value calculations, likely will sell for 20 percent more than they do now as investors anticipate quarterly earnings numbers that the company soon will publish.
-- One of our own Ticker Trax Instant Value candidates, Canada Lithium (TSX: V.CLQ), is at 41 cents Canadian, having more than doubled in the short order of roughly three months. I have been speaking with new CEO Kerry Knoll, who has no reason why the shares have been surging of late. Shares of Western Lithium (TSX: V.WLC) are also rising smartly. We STILL ARE considering making one of the two companies, or both, Planetary Prospects. But not yet.
New Orleans: When October rolls around,mostof me always wants to be 1) fishing with friends; and 2) in New Orleans at one of North America’s most diversified investment conferences. The New Orleans Investment Conference has in the past given me great satisfaction in terms of time spent meeting colleagues, subscribers and real miners, scientists and alternative economists. I’ll be presenting a down-and-dirty workshop and a presentation that includes a look at silver, gold and H1N1 -- at this year’s gathering; I hope some of you can join me.
Brien Lundin of The Gold Newsletter produces the conference, whichruns Oct. 8-11. Many of my trusted colleagues and investment sources attend the show. This year will bring an excellent crop of counter-clockwise and contrary thinkers in the areas of mining, emerging markets, commodities and life sciences. I encourage those who have the time and money to attend by clicking here. Those who cannot can contact me for any and all information I gather there.
If you are interested, please visit this link for registration. (Please email me with your plans to attend so that we can meet up.) The last New Orleans show I went to, and spoke at, was a corker … and gave me at least two leads that changed my portfolio life.
-- Scheduled mine tours
- In late August I will be visiting Avanti’s molybdenum property in Kitsault, British Columbia. Avanti (TSX: V.AVT) is a Planetary Prospect of this service, and like all Planetary Prospects, we here at home own the shares.
- In early September, Iwill be visiting the Nevada gold mine properties of Great Basin Gold (TSX: T.GPR), which is a Planetary Prospect.
- I am scheduled to visit James Longshore’s Ghana gold project in mid-September. The company is X-TRA Gold Resources (OTC: XTGR), and it is drilling holes this month along the Kibi Gold Belt.
That is all for now. Thank you for subscribing! (We own no shares of Canada Lithium or Western Lithium or X-TRA Gold.)
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Ticker Trax™ is published by Stockgroup Media Inc. Ticker Trax is an information service for subscribers and neither Stockhouse nor Thom Calandra is a broker or an investment advisor. None of the information contained therein constitutes a recommendation by Mr. Calandra or Stockhouse/Stockgroup Media that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction, or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person. Ticker Trax does not purport to tell or suggest the investment securities subscribers or readers should buy or sell for themselves. Subscribers and readers of Ticker Trax should conduct their own research and due diligence and obtain professional advice before making any investment decisions. Ticker Trax will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a reader’s reliance on information obtained in the reports. Subscribers and readers are solely responsible for their own investment decisions. Opinions expressed in Ticker Trax are based on sources believed to be reliable and are written in good faith, but no representation or warranty, expressed or implied, is made as to their accuracy or completeness. All information contained in Ticker Trax should be independently verified. The editor and publisher are not responsible for errors or omissions or responsible for keeping information up to date or for correcting any past information. Ticker Trax does not receive compensation of any kind from any companies that may be mentioned in the report. Any opinions expressed are subject to change without notice. Owners, employees and writers may hold positions in the securities that are discussed in Ticker Trax. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL THOM SEEKING PERSONALIZED INVESTMENT ADVICE, WHICH HE CANNOT PROVIDE. Copyright 2009 all rights reserved.
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