So I am well aware that pancreatic cancer has very limited treatment options and a very high mortality rate for those who are diagnosed with it. And I was an investor in OSL in earlier years - back when the CE mark was always imminent - but never came, and I sold out near their all-time lows when the CE mark was declined in March 2019 due to insufficient evidence of a material advantage over existing treatments - I'm paraphrasing here - but the meaning is the same. So - I'm the last person that anybody should be taking advice from in terms of this particular company, since I've obviously lost a heap and sold out at pretty much the worst time. However... My question now - having continued to follow the fortunes of the company, is: Why are OSL going to succeed now in terms of getting this product accepted as a standard of care treatment for Pancreatic Cancer?
I should clarify a couple of things. Firstly, I sold out not because I thought back in 2019 that OSL had no future; I sold out because I lost faith in management, and the high fees that they were generating for themselves. It seemed to me that they were either incompetent or dishonest in always promising what they clearly were not delivering. They either did not understand their roles properly and the regulatory and medical environments in which the company was supposed to be operating, or else they did and they were just stringing shareholders along while they generated outsized fees for themselves. That said, OSL have now gotten rid of the main culprit and they have a new CEO/MD now. They also now have a CMO, after quite a long time without one. So much of my concerns may now be redundant.
However, my greatest concern at this point is where their OncoSil treatment sits in terms of efficacy against PC. I know they are trying to expand their target market, but I watched Sirtex try to expand their own target market for SirSpheres years ago from Liver cancer to other cancers, and also spending millions on trying to prove SirSpheres could be a viable frontline treatment for Liver Cancer instead of a very effective salvage treatment. In my view, Gilman Wong wasted millions on those endevours which did nothing to further the cause of Sirtex at the time and its treatment. It was then through this lens - that poor management decisions can burn through millions of dollars of shareholders' funds with very little if anything to show for it at the end - that caused me to pull the pin on OSL when I did - after completely losing faith in their management team in 2019. However, back to PC. Despite the evidence put forward by OSL to date, I still consider that pancreatic cancer is the area where they are most likely to have the most success, however their lack of success to date in getting medical professionals to embrace their treatment and use it is not encouraging at all. Having read through the pros and cons - including in these HC threads on OSL - I have to wonder whather the treatment options have just moved on during this long period of poor management execution - by the previous management team - leaving OncoSil as a treatment that has little in the way of advantages over other available options. I know that being diagnosed with PC is still devestating, as the 12-month survival rate is still very low, however I'm not sure if OncoSil as a treatment option is head and shoulders above the other options available at this point in time. I'm no medical professional, as I'm sure many posters will quickly point out here, however surely if this new treatment - which is now available to be marketed and used in Europe, New Zealand, and other places - is head and shoulders above other available options for PC, doctors treating PC patients would be now using it. The fact that they are not suggests to me that the claims made by the company still do not match the current reality.
In terms of the OSL chart, it appears to me that shareholders have moved from despondency to exhaustion and surrender - giving up. While there have not been ANY fund managers on the OSL register as substantial shareholders since Regal exited in May 2020, it would not surprise me to learn that those fundies - if there are any left - with smaller than 5% positions are also now selling out of OSL as well.
Despite the improvements they have made in regard to their new management and key office holders, I still fail to see why OSL has a bright future from here. I hope for those still holding that they do, but I can't see the facts backing up that positive thesis. Happy to be proved wrong. I'd like to read a believable bull case for OSL.
Expand
(20min delay)