Dear Toby:
Regafding to the article Henry posted here, first, it is true that the drug is more important than the management at this point. Come to think about it, because the patient enrollment is done, the fate of the company has been decided already. Either it is a go or no go, it is a done deal now. However, the company does need more money to get the drug to the market. Two ways to do it, one is to get a partner, the other is to sell more shares. It is not because JNJ has pulled out. As JNJ will be paying until Aug., they have to have more money with or without JNJ by then if they were really going to run out of money. Of course, without JNJ, it is harder to get money. Either partnering or selling equity, it is a dilution of potential future earnings, but there is no other choice. The best the management can do is to find a way to dilute the potential earnings the least. They will not run out of money on purpose.
Still, I don't think they need to do anything before they get the trial results by Dec. The reason is, they lost 54 millions last year. But they had six trials going on for a large part of last year. That in an average five trials a year. This year the european trials will be done by the third quarter. So on average they only have three and a half trails going on. Combined with the 25% reduction of staffing and curtailing of R&D (that is big money, too), 52 millions plus the payment by JNJ until Aug. should last them until next year. By then, if the stock price rises, get more money by offering couple million more shares won't be too big a problem.
Good luck.
D.Right |
