Honing in

I don’t usually like to hone in on one poster’s views, but in the case of a poster who hones in on just one stock, I may make an exception. Especially when that poster doesn’t own the stock of focus, says s/he isn’t interested in owning it, doesn’t reside in Australia and doesn’t appear to be invested in any other ASX stocks. That’s a rather unusual profile on HC.

That's why I wish to focus on the views of our learned poster, the PhD, Professor of Medicine, founder of multiple biotechs, head of compound discovery for big pharma with a team of 200 and now mainly “consultant”…Some may assume this list is full of porkies (after all, there are quite a few told on HC),  but not I.

When questioned about motivation the learned poster’s reply was …no motivation here, and have been following PYC in so much as checking the share price quarterly and reading their annual reports and   … I check in on almost all of the companies that were on my watch list in the past… and caught the recent sp rise yesterday, thats all.

Perhaps. Notably, our learned poster honed right in on ds from first post yesterday. (Apologies for making you focus of attention again ds). ds wasn’t even a shareholder when the learned poster last posted. Yet, from the get go, the learned poster was keen to inform ds that s/he was aware of his identity and current shareholding details. Strange thing to know on an anonymous forum on which you haven’t posted for two years, about a stock where you only check sp quarterly and read annual reports…

Our learned poster appears very interested in company valuation and capital raisings. In fact, initial posting on this forum in November 2012 was in response to a thread about valuing PYC. Capital raisings were mentioned then. Multiple times. Capital raisings have been mentioned again in these latest postings. Why? The learned poster has explained I rarely buy on market, so have to probe their cap raising or future share offerings to get in before they occur. Then even kindly suggested that DS take a leaf out of his/her book. Yet, taken at word, the learned poster has made clear that s/he has no interest in investing in PYC. So why the due diligence on a stock/cap raise in which you have no personal interest?

The learned poster does have interest in PYC’s shareholders, especially the long-term investor share base and would seem to prefer the exit of traders from the stock
(I) try to give you hardcore investors another set of eyes…I am not at all trying to dampen valuation, but to attain a long-term patient and willing to hold the shares investor base, they need to be informed, and they need to understand where the company can go long term, not these day trader swings from day to day on news, but so that they have the confidence to stay as holders when the sp goes down also. The strongest investor base IMO is the one that understands exactly what the company is trying to do, what they can do, and when they will get there (and at what cost...lol), not that trade on hype.

There is expressed interest in shareholder views, with the learned poster explaining visiting forums and getting the pulse of the individual investors is an important component of my DD process . However there is also keen interest in sharing his/her view which the poster says I can pretty much guarantee is the same lens through which BigPharma and Big Institutional Investors are viewing it. Guarantee?

So why the expressed lack of interest in investing in PYC? Back on 29 November 2012, the learned poster not only provided some explanation for the reluctance, but also kindly highlighted the importance of intracellular drug delivery and endosome escape

(PYC) have no data showing that their peptides can cross cells and be active, in fact there are very few real examples of this from any of the peptide companies, and has been one of the biggest challenges. PYC's peptides are likely too big to target intracellular targets… Companies have been working on getting antibodies into cells and released into cytoplasm to target intracellular targets for more than 20 years, with little progress (most get degraded in endosomes or not enough gets into cells to be functional), so it is not as easy as you suggest, and PYC has no data that they can do it any better than the currently available methods.

The following day s/he added

I'll point out that the drug industry has been looking for peptides that cross and disrupt intracellular protein-protein interactions for a long long time, and there are many companies doing it now, most looking at smaller peptides, compared to PYC's large sizes. If they really had such data, then why is none of the collaborations going after intracellular targets??

Despite all the reservations about PYC, the learned poster said I am going to wait and see the end of Q1-2013 before I make an investment decision, and wait and see what these guys announce via press release.

True to word, the poster disappeared at the end of Q1 2013 (presumably without investing), only to reappear on this week’s announcement.

Our learned poster hasn’t quite said whether the views of late 2012 (about PYC’s intracellular drug delivery capability) were still held. But s/he did indicate likely ongoing interest in PYC, modestly noted, of course.

I think PYC is turning the corner for the better…

I think the data from PYC was a very nice step forward, as I said, in a long process…

….focus on validation of their CPP tags with validated biologics that just dont get in well is a nice market segment strategy, not necessarily high value, but value adding none the less

If PYC secures the license to Omomyc, that would be an inflection point IMO.


What to make of all this? Broadly, I’d describe it as pharma intelligence (as used by competitors, large institutional investors and pharma pre-collaboration or acquisition. Competitive intelligence seems least likely. Why bother engaging here?) The intent of the posts seems best described as “expectations management of longer-term investors”. The  unanswered question is….Why?

All just imo, dyor, etc. etc…..