Ray.........
A very small percentage of the outstanding shares is trading on any given day. Think about the history of this issue, about the personna of some of the older shareholders. Some of these people have this old penny stock in their portfolio that hasn't moved recently.... Cisplatin Tech or Cis-Bio or something like that. They haven't heard any news, and Aunt Helen says that they should buy that hot new stock, Microscape, Inc........ guess it's time to sell.
Cistron has cash, valid patents of value, cash, tested management, cash, a business plan of interest, cash, big-name partners for both diagnostics and therapeutics, cash, an existing reagents business, cash, a web site that shows intent to expand sales, and cash.
Note that they have some cash. ;-)
Ah, but the meat of the issue........ we don't know that there's a market for any of their potential products. Why don't some of you go out and find out if there are competitive products in development for a periodontal diagnostic? If so, what is the target, is it a given organism? Or if Biotech Australia thinks that PAI-2 or derivative is hot? Or if Vical/Merck/Gawdknowswho has an interest in IL-1 sequence inserts in DNA vaccines?
It's difficult for me to devote much energy to a penny stock.
Some of the questions to ask are largely spelled out in this thread. Why is it worth trying to answer them? Because this company is trading at a discount to "annuitized cash", or whatever we want to start calling this looking-forward-to-future-contributions-by-"got the seat of our pants beaten off of us"-Immunex balance sheet. CIST isn't going much lower. If the business plan is viable, it could go much higher.
I get the feel that Galton et al. sat down with experts and have built a business plan around what they think will work..... reagents and the diagnostic. Two of the inventors (at the "institutions") are among the acknowledged world's experts on IL-1. They should have an interest (royalties) in commercialization. I suspect that potential indications for IL-1-derivative molecules will be found. I know of one that has fascinated me for years. It derives, very circuitously, from observations made by Nelson Teng at Stanford. When I start thinking like this, I get excited about a potential winner.
Then I think about certain wording in the 10-K and about the Grausz affair, and I get angry all over again. ;-) ;-)
Disclaimer........ this rambling is the product of a shareholder. He disclaims anything to do with this crazy penny stock other than a vested interest in its appreciation. My feel for what this company would do and when they would do it has not been great.
Cheers! Rick |
