Ann: Bit225 Covid-19 Human Study Commenced, page-151

You will no doubt recall Pharmasset winning the HVC race a number of years back leaving Biotron's R&D program dead in the water after a decades work. It was bitterly disappointing at the time for Biotron shareholders although great for patients that there was finally a cure.

If we have leaned anything from that event it is surely that a biotech need to move faster than a glacier to be relevant in this industry. Its not the age of the company that is the issue, its the lack of urgency which they show. This needs to change or they risk the same thing happening again with HIV and that would be a complete disaster for BIT holders.

In reality they would have had a fair idea by early 2019 that the 009 results weren't convincing BP but they didn't start more trials until Nov 2021, ie more than 3 years after the previous trial ended and results analysed in 2018. In 2019 they still had plenty of cash after doing a big CR in 2018 but by the time they started a new round of trials that had dwindled dramatically and net assets is now approaching zero.

Given the financial position I do understand why they chose not to run a proper covid trial however if they really thought they had a serious shot at covid there was no reason not to do a CR and run a proper one. They certainly set that expectation but have since backed away from it. This was a conscious decision by management and a clear signal to the market on the lack of commitment to covid.

Biotron sends very clear signals to the market IMO without explicitly admitting anything. Some chose to ignore the signals or yell at anybody who points them out. Do you remember a chunk of the board all offloading significant amounts of stock in Oct 2018, only weeks after the 009 HIV trial results were released? Even a blind man could see that the "seeking a commercial deal" wasn't looking good but "do as I say not as I do" is the mantra around here.

Hopefully in about 9 months there is finally a hint of some good news when preliminary data is available on HIV.