A Look into NW Bio's Downfall: Bad Management or Short Sellers?
June 24, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
BETHESDA, Md. – Since July of 2015, shares of Northwest Bio have done nothing but go down, down, down. The stock was trading at $12.24 per share on July 23, 2015, but today is only worth 68 cents per share.
On Oct. 16, shares of Northwest Bio plunged 30 percent, but there was no information provided by the company in the days that followed as to why the stock fell and how the company was responding. A few days later, NW Bio sent a note to shareholder blaming the decline in stock prices on short sellers who “"orchestrated campaign to drive the stock price lower, including questionable short-selling activity," The Street’s Adam Feuerstein said in February. NW Bio did not provide evidence of any short selling, Feuerstein said.
This morning, Feuerstein said the deep losses the company has felt is due to the fact that for the past year the company has been unable to enroll any patients in its Phase III study of the brain cancer vaccine DCVax-L. The once believed “temporary” halt has been extended and many people, including some in NW Bio’s management, believe the trial may never begin, Feuerstein said. And while the experimental drug has languished in a form of purgatory, Feuerstein said the company has been largely silent about the issue, which has upset investors. Feuerstein criticized the company’s leadership for failing to “hold conference calls or present at health care investor conferences.”
Last year Feuerstein said the lead investigator of DCVax-L, Linda Liau, a distinguished UCLA neurosurgeon and brain tumor expert, revealed in a conference that patients were living longer, but that wasn’t helping the study because it hurt the chance of showing survivability rates between the drug and placebo.
In May, the company noted in a press release that its Phase III trial of DCVax-L for GBM brain cancer is ongoing. NW Bio said “well over 300 patients have been enrolled in the trial and the patients are continuing to be treated in accordance with the trial protocol.” However, NW Bio said the trial remains “subject to a partial clinical hold on screening of additional patient candidates.” NW Bio said it is maintaining an ongoing dialog with regulators and providing further information to them regarding the trial. One month later though, the trial is still on a partial hold.
In April, NW Bio received a letter of noncompliance from the Nasdaq Exchange. Northwest Bio said it is currently in discussions with the Nasdaq about two potential approaches to remedy the non-compliance and “intends to take the appropriate steps to address the issues raised by the Nasdaq Staff as quickly as possible.”
Not only was Feuerstein critical of the lack of NW Bio’s transparency, he said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should halt trading of the company’s stock until NW Bio does provide the information that investors are seeking.