I take your point that "drugs operate in their own reality." (I'm not great at stats but I have enough maths to understand the analysis you did in your original post). What I'm interested in is that other kind of reality - the market.
I'm going to guess at three possible trajectories for the company
a) fade away
b) reboot around 2591 the way they did around 2566 a few years ago (if they can persuade anyone to stump the cash)
c) do a deal with big pharma, who will fund PhIII trials while NEU takes some sort of up front/ royalty deal.
I've been working on the basis that if PhIIb is "successful" we go with (c). Now you've pointed out that things aren't as binary as that and you've given a quite reasonable prediction of what the trial might show, which I'm going to summarise as "maybe there's an effect and if there is it's probably not that profound."
Looking over the R&D costs for the PhIIb trial it's clear that the cost of a PhIII trial will be a sizeable fraction of the company's market cap so I can't see any other option other than (c) to do a Ph III trial. Based on an apples vs oranges comparison I'd made with another company's deal, I'd guessed NEU might get an upfront payment in the 10's of millions (enough to get Ph I and maybe PhII done for 2591) and some sort of milestone/royalty payment if 2566 got to market. But if there's no deal I can't see what the way forward would be.
So my speculative question is this: let's say you've nailed the results and what you predict comes to pass exactly. Are you (or is anyone else) prepared to speculate as to whether that is good enough for a deal? Is big pharma likely to stump the 10's of millions required? Otherwise what are the company's options? In a way we could say you've made a prediction for where the company is at March 31, 2017. Gazing deeper into the crystal ball, where is the company likely to be at March 31, 2018?
The short version: what are the consequences for the company if you're right?
NEU Price at posting:
5.7¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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