"Please tell me what has changed except that we are closer to some potentially very significant company milestones?"
For a former fund manager, I am surprised you have to ask.
What has changed is macro environment where there was a lot of very very cheap easy money available, which enabled a lot of very questionable companies to raise a lot of capital.
MSB has been a company with a long long history of raising a lot of money, burning a lot of money and so forth. Now, MSB continues to burn a lot of cash, and a huge concern is whether or not the MSB has enough cash to fund its ambitions, because if it does not - then it may find it very very expensive to raise cash - resulting in massive dilution for existing shareholders - or may find itself unable to raise enough cash at all, in which case the administrators will be appointed. The macro environment has now pushed loss making companies so far up the risk curve even many meme investors are no longer finding it funny.
Bear in mind that MSB is not debt free either, and in their last quarterly, reported a net debt position of $32.9m USD. MSB had cash on hand of over $75m USD, but it was less than debt of $94m USD
Its debt facilities also have covenants on it, including the requirement to maintain a minimum cash balance of $US35 million under the agreement with Oaktree.
All these factors place the fate of MSB in a very very precarious position, as failure, or costly delays could lead to it potentially breaching its debt covenants, meaning the lenders will take control as you know they will be entirely focused on getting their money back, even if it means screwing over shareholders.
While Itescu has been exceptional at convincing people to hand over money, his skills will be tested when there are a lot less people with a lot less capital available and willing to take a punt on a speccie like MSB with a long record of multiple failures and potential big name partners like Novartis walking away.
By the way, can you please clarify - when you say you were a 'former fund manager' - what exactly was your role? Analyst? Portolio Manager? CIO? Intern? Sales?
I really find it amazing you have to ask that question about what has changed as it is so obvious and it is one of the most talked about things for all growth companies burning cash, or any company that might need any cash injection.
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