Yes, after thinking about this announcement for a while I agree...

Yes, after thinking about this announcement for a while I agree with Solaris that it is hard to tease much real information out of it. I also agree with JelloB in his contempt for the spin involved in characterising another standstill as an extension of the cash runway. Presumably, if we continued to do nothing our cash would last for quite a long time. Doesn’t sound like a positive to me, though.

What is really disappointing is it sounds as though the company has lost faith in the lung fibrosis indication pretty much altogether. I know the announcement implies there is at least one party interested in that indication but what if that (or those) parties think it’s too soon to know if it’s worth entering into a partnership? The announcement seems to imply that the company will only proceed with the inhaled version to manufacturing and the already delayed phase 1b/2a trial in lung fibrosis in the event someone wants to partner at this early stage. If not, it will change direction towards whatever indication it can get some interest it. If that were not the implication, surely the company would be pressing forward without delay to manufacturing and clinical trials in pulmonary fibrosis anyway, and relying on a partnership deal in kidney or eye disease to fund (or justify raising funds for) any reformulation and trials in the other indications?

I had a look at the kidney fibrosis paper referred to. It deals mainly with AD-114 (that takes me back) but does confirm AD-214 seems to work as well. To quote:“These results suggest that AD-114 (and potentially AD-214) not only antagonizes the interaction between CXCR4 and its ligand SDF-1 but also regulates CXCR4 intracellular downstream signaling.”The slides of mouse kidneys reminded me of the slides of bleomycin-affected mouse lungs that first attracted my attention to this company years ago. But that just emphasised to me that this was pretty much a “back to square one” proposition. What is more, the delivery method used for the study was daily intra-peritoneal injection. That is fine for laboratory mice but I wonder if it will be practical for humans. We know that the injection method used previously for pulmonary fibrosis resulted in the drug being cleared by the liver and a nebuliser isn’t going to work for kidney disease. So what will the method of administration be? I have visions of an announcement in 2027 telling us that a thrilling opportunity has arisen to reformulate AD-514 as a “patient preferred” anal suppository.

All in all, if the distant promise of this kidney application is enough to cause us to hold up the development of inhaled AD214 for lung fibrosis, then it sounds as though we don’t have much faith in the direction we have been taking until now.

Maybe the eye disease area is further along. I didn’t have the energy to look.

I have now sold. At a loss. Again. Because I expect the share price to fall still further once people have worked out what this announcement really means. I still think this technology has great potential to benefit the world but I rather suspect it won’t happen for some time yet, the way things are going. I may buy back. Again. If it falls far enough.

And if there is a wonderful partnership announcement before that happens, well, good luck to you all.