In The Garage With Bill Gates and Doing A Bradbury
I feel like this is The Big One - this may be my last chance to be invested at the pivotal moment in a global company's development. The choice is, do you believe? Do you hang on for the big pay off, or trade out after a small but satisfying profit?
I'm all in. This is it - I've watched other people get in on the ground floor and then stay the distance after others wilted. This is how billionaires are made - big long-term positions in world beating stocks.
I feel like we're in the garage with Bill Gates and Paul Allen - some will stay with it and others will drift off, having missed a great opportunity. As the old market adage says, "Let your profits run". As Richard Dreyfus would say, "Let it ride".
What all this share price action means
The past week's unprecedented buying volume in both Australian and US markets has been filled by profit takers and apparent naked shorting in the US market.
I don't think all of the naked short has yet been covered and it appears to be continuing each night in the US and then covered the next day by buying Aussie MSB stock which will then have to be converted into ADRs. The ADRs on issue should start rising in the next day or two as the MSB shares bought in Australia settle and are lodged with JP Morgan to convert into MESO ADRs. Those MESO ADRs will then be used to settle the US naked short position. It is quite possible that some of this MSB buying started in the Aussie market last Friday.
The price rise from $1.965 to $3.16 in the past week (and much higher in the US on Friday night) tells you that the buyers are serious and are quite prepared to push the price up to get stock. Sellers are responding to the price rise and stock is being shaken out which may have otherwise have been locked up in safe hands.
If my shorting theory is right, you will see the number of MESO ADRs start to rise. It is remarkable that the Aussie traders who are supplying the stock to enable the shorters to cover have been so desperate to take profits - if they had thought it through, they would realise that the shorts must be desperate to cover and would probably pay up to the much higher prices recorded in the US market on Friday and Monday. Their loss, that's trading for you.
The all-time record volume in Australia on Friday after the Mount Sinai announcement was 38m shares, or 7% of the company and a price rise of almost 40% ($1.965 to $2.73). Never before has so much stock traded on a strong up day.
Previously the biggest day's volume was when Teva sold out at $1.50, and the discount attracted buying. Friday was raw, power buying, huge volume on a huge price rise.
Selling came from profit takers, many of whom had bought stock down as low as $1.02 only a month earlier - remember the crossing of 6m at $1.06? I think that selling at the low was forced selling by instos suffering redemptions and the stock went to fast money hands, many of whom were happy to trade out for gains of up to 160% in a month (high on Friday in Australia was $2.83).
Massive, ridiculous, unheard-of buying followed in the US on Friday night - 30m ADRs (150m ordinary shares equivalent) or 28% of the company traded. The price went berserk because there are less than 10m ADRs on issue - so to get stock, the buyers paid as much as $US20.57 for MESO ADRs (equivalent to $A6.45 per MSB Aussie share). The MESO premarket volume was the highest of any Nasdaq listed stock and the 3.2 bagger price rise (up 220%) was by far the best percentage price rise on the Nasdaq on Friday.
I think it is obvious that a large chunk of this MESO ADR buying was facilitated by naked short selling. The only other possible (but unlikely) explanation is that it was churn as there just aren't enough ADRs. I've never seen anything like 3x the listed volume of a stock churn in a day. The biggest holder of ADRs is M&G and it is highly unlikely that they are selling and they have never lent their MESO or MSB stock (in my experience). M&G only hold 1.42m ADRs and the next biggest holders only hold 229,000 then 114,000 the last 4 holders in the Top 10 only hold an average of 27,000 each. So how do you get a base load of stock to churn into 30m ADRs on the day? You don't!!
So, to sell 30m ADRs when only 10m exist, if it isn't churn, you have to naked short, or borrow stock from the big holders and convert into ADRs and lend it to do covered shorting. Is there the stock available to do 150m MSB shares of covered shorting? No! The only chunks of stock big enough are owned by The Prof (69m), M&G (71m) or maybe Thorney (Alex Waislitz) at 25m - none of these are sellers, and you would even have to register Thorney's stock as ADRs and then churn it 6x in one day to match this volume.
The ADR register has not moved since last week, although I would expect to start to see the number of ADRs increase from tomorrow - which could reflect stock bought in the market in Australia
The naked shorting was probably by the largest brokers, hedge funds and prime brokers who took the risk that the US price was at such a massive premium they could cover the short by buying in the Aussie market on Monday and then convert that stock to ADRs by lodging it with JP Morgan after the trades settled on Wednesday (today). Some of the Friday buying in the Australian market was possibly part of this strategy. If they were buying in the Aussie market on Friday, they knew how easy it was to get stock and how hard they would have to push on Monday. So they took a phenomenal risk, but it paid off big time.
Some had thought that the monster buying in the US on Friday night was short covering - I doubt it as the last recorded short in the US was only 600,000 ADRs.
For those who think the US buying was retail churn, I say Tosh! It was made to look like churn - with the most common trades on the day for 100 or 200 ADRs - however big buyers and the brokers facilitating this trade by shorting can programme their computers to execute multiple small trades every second on Nasdaq and hide their big trades. There were over 1,000 PAGES of trades on Friday night (each with 48 lines of stock) - many pages covered only 2 or 3 seconds of trading. There were 57,353 lines of trading with an average of 532 ADRs per line (ie 2,663 MSB shares equivalent per line). You had to wade through 30 pages at a time to find a trade as big as 15,000 ADRs.
US Retail just doesn't act like this, churning in and out huge amounts of ADRs at 3.2x the previous day's closing price, with record high buying in the pre-market and churning through 3x the number of ADRs on issue. And all on a stock which is hardly known in the Australian market - let alone some tiny foreign stock on the Nasdaq. Sure, some of the US brokers issued research reports on Friday night - but none of them changed their price targets for MSB and the notes were short and said little more than the company's announcement in Australia on Friday. MSB has made many announcements like this in the past and has seen nothing like Friday's volume in the ADRs.
The Aussie market on Friday, similarly, had no big crossings - with the biggest (outside the opening and closing matches) individual lines 50,000; 49,000; 49,000 and 40,000 although you could've bought 5m fairly easily in the 30 biggest blocks and another 5m in the next 80 biggest blocks. My point is, this is made to look like or imitate retail buying. The average in Australia on Friday was 2,034 shares per line. Yet 36m traded on the ASX. Suspicious - why no crossings? Why didn't the buying broker approach some of the big holders? Why did most of it seem to go through the dark pipes and not go through the lit desk? Why was no-one calling around trying to cross lines of stock? Admittedly, CommSec was 30% of the volume - and maybe that was mainly retail, but maybe the big guys were hiding behind CommSec as well?
Don't get me wrong, naked shorting in the US ADRs is highly unusual, speculative, dangerous activity. An announcement on Monday morning could've completely blown this strategy out of the water, although the stock shorted at $6.44 was probably always pretty safe. Maybe the buyer did a deal with the shorting broker to make good any losses. That would have to be a buyer with very deep pockets, who was so desperate for the stock that price was no object.
Who could such a buyer be? Maybe such a buyer values MSB well over $A10, so paying $A6 is immaterial and they thought it more important to get their foot on a big chunk of stock. Maybe it's not their money? Maybe it's a pharma or government agency building a blocking stake to keep others from buying control of a key strategic stock in the global healthcare market for a pittance. We know the company is speaking to several governments and pharmas - maybe one or more of them is trying to stop the others gaining control? Maybe one of the pharmas thinks if they are about to sign a big partnership deal it would be smart to gain the upside on the share price after the deal is signed and stop someone signing at the same time? Or a government agency who doesn't want to look silly if they fund the manufacturing plant only to see the Chinese take control? Dangerous stuff. Bill Browder territory.
Of course, this sort of buying would be difficult with the Australian Government saying it won't allow takeovers of Australian stocks while prices are down because of the global Corona virus crisis. Maybe the ADR buyers are ignoring this, hoping to fly under the radar, or maybe a deal has been done with the government?
Interesting that the ASX didn't issue a speeding ticket (a Price and Volume Query) and the ADRs only had a couple of very brief trading halts in the first 10 minutes of trade in the US on Friday night. Usually this sort of trading activity would be setting off automated alarm bells - in fact, in market surveillance it must've sounded like the jackpot going off on a Las Vegas Megabucks slot machine. Even with an announcement on Friday morning the ASX would normally ask the company to confirm that there is no reason they know of for the price and volume move that should be disclosed to the exchange. More formally, a speeding ticket is a notice issued by the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) asking a company to explain why its share price has abnormally increased in a short period of time or why there is abnormal trading volume. They would simply answer in this case that the market is fully informed following the announcement of the Mount Sinai results. It's a formality which doesn't seem to have happened in either Australia or the US. May be innocent.
Rinse and repeat all this action in the US on Monday, Tuesday and (it appears at the moment) Wednesday nights and the Aussie markets during the days. All up 116m shares traded on ASX and Chi-x in 4 days (21.5% of the company) and 38m MESO ADRs or 188.5m MSB shares equivalent over 3 days. For 2019, MESO ADRs averaged 45,570 traded per day - the average of the past 3 nights is 12.6m, 0r
278x the daily average ADRs traded in 2019. Unusual? I think so!
Is the US leading the trading?
So, as
@Gmeister asked, does the trading on Friday night mean that the US trading is now leading MSB. I think the answer is still no, as the pullback in price on the Aussie market showed on Monday and Tuesday. The Americans can push the price, and the moves are magnified by the lack of ADRs as trading stock, but ultimately, that buying has to transfer back to the Aussie market to cover the short which is created.
The two days of Aussie trading which saw a 40% price rise on Friday and a 60% rise from Thursday's close to today's close would've happened without the craziness of the US price on Friday night. In fact, if there were no ADRs on issue and a big pharma or government agency wanted to buy stock, they would've done much the same thing, and just got a US prime broker to make them a market and the prime broker could've bought back the stock on the Aussie market with a lot less suspicion - still would've pushed the price up strongly.
If this is real long-term buying emerging from the US, which is possible, then eventually enough MSB shares may be bought and converted into ADRs so that most of the liquidity is available in the US market. But we are not yet at that situation. A few more nights like Friday might certainly get us there. You would then find that MSB is effectively a US stock, analysed by US brokers and that there are so few shares left to trade in Australia that local brokers here abandon it because of lack of transaction fees and brokerage.
You might also find that Pres. Trump puts pressure on MSB to move its head office to the US if they agree to fund major manufacturing plants there as part of his America first jobs plan. I hope that doesn't happen, although I will hang on to my shares if it does, as the valuation would probably explode if it was regarded as a purely US biotech with the world's leading stem cell technology.
Can the price stay high after this buying has finished?
I think so. The urgency of this buying tells me someone thinks they know something is coming. If so, it could be coming in the next few days, as someone may have already acquired up to 20% of the company, or 15% if they are a foreigner. They may have bought more - but that would be in breach of Australia's takeover laws and foreign investment guidelines - nevertheless, this is really weird stuff, and who's to say they are people who play by normal rules?
So what could be coming?
Covid19-ARDS Trial
We know the 300 person US Covid19 ARDS trial is "imminent" - I think it will start by the end of this week.
MSB's cells are incredibly potent technology to shut down all the inflammation pathways. Previous aGvHD trials using anti-TNF and Anti-IL6 have all failed miserably at stopping the cytokine storm because they only address a single pathway. MSB's cells shut down all the pathways and treat all of the inflammation.
In Covid19-ARDS, the macrophages, T Cells, B Cells all excrete the same cytokines as in aGvHD, so the same pathways are involved.
The new analysis of an earlier 60 adult patient study using MSB's cells on COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) showed that "remestemcel-L significantly improved respiratory and functional clinical outcomes in patients with elevated levels of the inflammatory biomarker C-reactive protein (CRP). Significantly elevated CRP levels are also observed in patients with various acute lung diseases, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a life-threatening complication of COVID-19."
MSB has already tested a two dose per week regimen of 2m cells per kg on aGvHD which is well tolerated, with no side effects and can be readily applied to Corona virus, with only 1 week's dose required, rather than 4 weeks for aGvHD, MSB already has over 1100 patients of safety data and a mechanism that makes sense.
This Covid-ARDS is right in the sweet spot of MSB's technology and these are very very potent immunomodulatory cells in a way you can't remotely get to with traditional anti-inflammatory drugs.
The FDA were able to use the GvHD data to approve one-off emergency "compassionate" treatments of the Mount Sinai patients with "dismal" prospects - i.e. nothing to lose. The FDA then started seeing the unheard of results which have already been reported - in other hospitals, the ability to come off ventilators was less than 10% in these moderate to severe ARDS patients - basically in New York at the moment if you are on a ventilator for moderate/severe ARDS you are likely to die.
Note that the patients with "dismal" prospects had received other treatments which had failed. All had been treated with oral hydroxychloraquine. Some had tried remdesivir or anti IL6 drugs. All of them had moderate to severe ARDS (which has a 60-88% death rate) and they received the MSB cells within 72 hours of entering ICU.
MSB were in the right place at the right time with the world's leading stem cell technology, safety and trial data and patent protection. Plus they are probably within 5 months of product approval for GVHD.
MSB's remestemcel-L cells are an intravenous infusion. 50% of the cells go straight to the lungs and treat the cytokine storm, then can move on to the gut and the liver, the major organs of the body which can also be badly affected by Covid19. The inflammation and ventilation/intubation can cause long term damage such as lung fibrosis and more inflammation means more fibrosis - so its best for the long term health of the patient to stop the inflammation and get off the tubes as quickly as possible. It also causes kidney and liver failure deaths. Blood vessels inflame and clog causing heart attacks and stroke - this is the sort of thing Prof Bob Graham has been warning about. Young people often survive the lung destruction only to die from heart attacks or strokes. The lung damage can mean some people have no energy and can leave hospital and have constant difficulty breathing or doing light exercise or walking and at worst may have to spend the rest of their lives in bed. The MSB cells hit the lungs first, then go out into the rest of the body to reduce these vascular complications of heart attack and stroke.
Note that MSB's other product candidates in Heart Failure and Chronic Low Back Pain are a different delivery via direct injection into the site vs the infusion of remestemcel-L.
So remestemcel-L appears to be the perfect product for Covid-ARDS and it is a real stroke of luck that MSB is right at the end of the process of approval with the US FDA and has a priority review and AdComm board scheduled at about the same time this trial will be ending.
Finally, MSB already has commercial quality product ready to go due to its increased manufacturing in preparation for the commercialisation of aGvHD. what a great position to be in.
Key points about the trial design and timing
I had thought that it was prudent to expect the trial to take at least 3-4 months to recruit all the patients (it took much longer for other phase 3 trials) however, it may be that the failure of hydroxychloraquine and remdesivir (Gilead) allows faster recruitment. They will probably also be helped by the fantastic anecdotal reports coming from the Mount Sinai compassionate treatments for patients with "dismal" prospects.
The primary outcome will be either 28 day or 30 day mortality according to various estimates, potentially with some secondary goals. Furthermore, it has been noted in some of the analysts' reports that the trial may be stopped for overwhelming efficacy (as seen in the original Mount Sinai results) after the first one-third of patients results are known - ie that could be sometime in June/July. If the first 100 patients are recruited in 4 to 6 weeks and 50% of them come off the ventilators after 10-days, we could see the trial stopped by the end of June.
Note that the remdesivir trial had an early stop clause based on an initial 15-day comparison of both the control group and drug group's outcomes on an 8-point scale from fully recovered to death and would review this scale after the first 100 patients were reviewed. The DSMB would recommend the study be halted if clear, substantial evidence of a treatment difference between drug and placebo. I think MSB's trial will have similar parameters.
There are a few points to note as to MSB's very good chances of success:
1. The FDA has asked that the trial be increased to 300 patients to give it more robust outcomes and if positive they will only require a single trial for approval (or possibly label extension from the possibly approved Ryoncil product). The criteria will be moderate to severe ARDS with a p/f ratio less than 200. Once you go less than 100 it is very severe ARDS. Many trials do not outline the p/f ratio in their study and are really only targeting Covid pneumonia. Other "competitors" trials are targeting p/f greater than 300, where there is already a 90% chance of survival - that may be called severe Covid, but it is NOT severe ARDS, and the vast bulk of those people survive anyway, compared with the death rate of 60-80% of the moderate - severe ARDS patients targeted by MSB. The controls in the remdesivir trial only had a death rate of 12% - so they clearly weren't targeting the same severe group as MSB. Chinese data have shown a 60-80% death rate in 30 days and less than 10% of patients extubated in the group with p/f less than 200. So, a 30 day survival target seems a reasonable trial design.
2. Patients in ICU less than 72 hours will be the protocol (NOT people who have been in ICU for 3 weeks as they are probably already severely damaged from the ARDS and unlikely to reverse this damage). They will probably stay on ventilators until the p/f ratio goes back above 300 and then start weaning off the ventilator and then move out of ICU when stable.
3. In fact, the most likely path forward is that the FDA will approve Ryoncil (could come as early as July, but almost certainly by the end of September) and then MSB will apply for a label extension into Covid19-ARDS, using this 300 person P2/3 trial
4. The FDA only took 7 days to review the data, patients from the Mount Sinai compassionate use programme and protocols to approve this trial going ahead, so they look like they are keen to help it happen. The US Government is behind the funding of the trial - 300 person trial could cost $50-60m, paid for by CTSN set up by the NIH. MSB will provide the cells - my guess is they will cost less than $US5m, and much less if the trial is stopped after 1/3 of the patients show overwhelming efficacy.
5. Competitors which are single pathway drugs have generally all been trialed and failed on the "mother of all inflammation" aGvHD and MSB is the only treatment which has passed a P3 trial with tremendous efficacy and no side effects. If competitors can't cure aGvHD, they are highly unlikely to cure Covid19-ARDS, which may be categorised as the new "mother of all inflammation".
6. The other US stem cell trial run at the moment by Dr Mathey is only 120 patients using poor quality "home brewed" academic or research cells. Mathey has been a US leader in stem cell research for the past 10 years, but any MSC product would be in breach of MSB's patents. The trial is using 10m cells per kg rather than MSB's much higher quality commercial grade cells which only require 2m cells per kg. Studies have previously shown no benefit, with huge variability in cell quality (vs MSB only 5% variability) - injecting dead cells 50 - 80% of the time. Trials of 60 patients with bacterial ARDS, not viral. Even though this research probably breaches patents, MSB may support benevolent use of these cells, if it meets stringent release criteria, but not commercial use.
7. Athersys and Pluristem - we are talking P2 30 patient trials, ARDS caused by bacterial pneumonia, nice pilot data with survival, and trials where 7 or 8 patients have responded well - but these are tiny companies even compared to MSB and they are probably infringing patents if they use MSCs on ARDS.
8. Patents have held up in the past and continue in the US out to the mid 2030's. Other bigger players like Takeda and JCR once filed for approval in the EU and MSB challenged the patents and MSB won unanimously. That's why Takeda and JCR pay royalties. With Athersys and Pluristem, it is likely that MSB would use their dominant IP to block them, rather than charging a royalty. In fact, one of them challenged the MSB patents in the EU 4 or 5 months ago, and they failed.
9. Prof Itescu was on the Morning TV programme on Wednesday talking about multiple other products that remestemcel-L could be used for. In fact remestemcel-L could use ARDS approvals and label extensions as an entry point for a whole franchise of severe lung diseases such as COPD, steroid resistant asthma etc etc.
10. I think it is obvious that they will launch Ryoncil as a high price entry point then expand to Covid-ARDS then further expand the label into other diseases. Based on aGvHD pricing, ARDS will probably cost $US60,000 to 70,000, which would be attractive to health funds if it gets patients off ventilators and out of ICU 10 days earlier than average - particularly in the moderate to severe cases.
11. On the morning breakfast show on Wednesday, the Prof also mentioned parallel studies in Melbourne and Sydney for Covid19-ARDS. That may refer to the trial that Prof Bob Graham from the Victor Chang Research Institute mentioned on TV around a month ago, that was supposed to start in the next month - so soon.
Partnering Deals
I mentioned in my last note that MSB could choose to license a major pharma and take a royalty, or could do a 50/50 joint venture with a pharma (MSB supplies the cells and the pharma handles the distribution - or some other split).
@Wombat had an interesting go at valuing MSB on some of these bases, and I have done similar valuations in the past (and in my last post I came up with a "crazy" valuation potential for MSB of $200-300 per share). These are really numbers plucked out of the air, and heavily based on assumptions which no-one can possibly know before product approval, pricing, reimbursement discussions, true market size, other competitors etc - however we are having a go just to get an "order of magnitude" and it looks enormous).
The Prof is working 24/7 on this stuff. You only had to see him on the Morning Programme at 625am Wednesday to see the effort he is putting in.
I think there will be different partnering deals in different jurisdictions (as we have already seen with Tasly, Grunenthal, JCR and Takeda). If Ryoncil is FDA approved and then Covid-ARDS is allowed as a label extension after successful completion of the 300 person trial, all the hard work and expense has been done - that's a very different prospect to a company which is doing P2 trials. MSB might not even need a partner for severe ARDS - it is a specialist ICU product and so wouldn't need a big sales team. Whichever way they go, on past indications the Prof will drive a hard bargain - it'll be exciting.
Europe may well be different however, with 5 major countries, different languages, prices, reimbursement policies, regulatory regimes etc making it more likely MSB would need a partner with experience in dealing with this labyrinthe.
We look to have the beginnings of a franchise for remestemcel-L (similar to CSL's IVIG for kids with rare autoimmune diseases and then used widely for other indications).
Cash Position
Wednesday's quarterly $C cash flow report showed the cash burn came in slightly less than forecast in the previous quarter, at just under $US20m. I expect it to stay around this rate for the June quarter, and may have to allow $US2m or so to dose the each 100 patients in the Covid-19 ADRS trial over the three months to July - although the trial could conceivably end after the first 100 patients.
Unfortunately, the law has changed this quarter on providing cash flow forecasts and so se don't have a forecast for next quarter - but it is probably prudent to expect up to $5m more cash burn due to the Covid 19 trials.
The company has $US60m cash on hand and another $US62.5m which may be received from lenders Hercules and NovaQuest and partner Grunenthal. That will last 6 quarters of $US20m cash burn ie out to September 2022. Sales of Ryoncil are expected to start as soon as the FDA approval comes through, which is expected at the latest by the end of September, and sales for Covid19-ARDS could start at the same time. If both of these products are approved, normal cash burn won't be an issue and a large upfront payment from a big pharma partner (say $US100m) should mean MSB never have to worry about cash again (as long as the products are successful).
ASX200 Index Entry Now Almost Certain - lots of buying coming
Something out of the ordinary would have to happen to stop MSB entering the ASX200 in the June rebalance. It is based on the average daily market cap between November 30 and May 31.
For those who want to do the exercise and keep it updated on their computers, remember that MSB has an Investible Weight Factor of 0.85 (so 15% of its shares are not included in the calculation). Also remember that to enter the Index, you have to rank at average market cap number 179 or higher, and a stock has to be relegated (by falling to number 221 by average daily market cap or lower).
I wouldn't be surprised if a chunk of the recent buying in the past week was by index funds stung into action by the enormous share price rise. I have shown previously the huge price rises other stocks experienced in the run up to index inclusion and for a short period after inclusion. Many index funds do not have to totally or exactly replicate the index and they have some leeway to buy stocks entering the index. Many small cap funds, special situation funds etc buy stocks like MSB purely for technical reasons like index inclusion.
Unfortunately I can't make the calculations available as they are copyrighted by S&P and I don't want to run the risk of being reported to the mods by one of the shorters. They are certainly on my back. Smacks of desperation trying to keep info out of the public domain, so I'm being careful.
For now, take my word for it that MSB is almost sure to enter the ASX200. If that looks like changing, I'll put out a note.
Bottom Line
This Covid-ARDS is right in the sweet spot of MSB's technology and these are very very potent immunomodulatory cells in a way you can't remotely get to with traditional anti-inflammatory drugs.
IFF Covid19 ARDS becomes a successful product, the potential share price is $200-300 rather than my current forecast of up to $20.
At that price, people have the chance of joining the millionaire league - we're in the garage with Bill Gates - will we decide to hang on like the world's most successful investors, or will we do what most investors do and sabotage ourselves with over-active trading, profit taking and general chickening out? It's everyone's personal decision, but I already know what most people will do - and I'm not making any recommendations - make your own decisions about how much risk you can handle.
Timing in biotech is everything - too early and you get burned off by constant capital raisings and cash burn and too late you miss the big percentage gains.
The past month has seen the share price move from $1.02 to over $6.44 in the US market, before pulling back hard. Not often you see a 6-bagger in a month. This is spectacular stuff, with much more to come if the Covid19 trial is successful. The guys who wait for product approval, sales, profits and dividends will possibly be paying $A20 per share - and maybe they'll be happy if it can get to $A30 - a 50% profit is nothing to be sneezed at. I'm going to ride this baby all the way from $1.02 to $100 - that's how you snag The Big One - which might only come up once in a lifetime.
I actually prefer to invest in biotech by buying a portfolio of 20 stocks and hope that 3 of them pay off with 10-baggers to pay for all the others whose trials fail. Unfortunately, I can't identify anything else in the same league as MSB at present - who else has the leading product in the world which can solve the world's two biggest problems since the Spanish 'flu and the Great Depression?
We have seen massive buying in MSB since last Friday - over 55% of the company's issued shares have changed hands, although if a lot of the US MESO ADR buying is shorted and then covered in the Aussie market, it is double counted - so let's say it looks like 20% to 30% may have changed hands. Some big players, government, pharma or institutional have been buying. Some short-sighted traders have probably booked nice short-term profits on the sell side - but the price rise tells you the pressure is coming from the buyers for the first time in 10 years.
A lot of news is due between now and the end of June and it has the potential to be blockbuster stuff.
I think we can all feel a bit of the disbelief, then exhilaration that Steven Bradbury felt when he triumphed against all odds, surviving near-death experiences, long years of hard grind and disappointment to scrape through the rounds and the semis at his fourth Olympics, to take the first gold medal for an Australian at a Winter Olympics when all about him fell over. A bit like the failed trials falling either side of the Prof at the moment, just as MSB's decade-plus long battle to survive, fund itself, complete world-leading research and persevere with crippling expenses of trials and cash burn are ending. The approval of Ryoncil by September will be a world first for allogeneic stem cells with the FDA - and it will probably be achieved by the little Aussie battler who wouldn't give up.
We'll end up in the garage with Bill Gates and doing a Bradbury.
Please don't take any of this as investment advice, do your own research and determine your own risk tolerance. I'm just an old retired guy looking for a win. But this is how we'll feel:
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