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by LeanderK 645 days ago
what am I missing? Isn't this good news (the positive phase 2 results)?
3 comments

Yes, but the CEO was trying to take those profits for herself by biding to take the company private, which the Board of Directors refused to put up with
Phase 2 is not a slam dunk. Much more work remains, and under the guidance of a CEO who has zero drug development experience and a track record of management incompetence:

- lying about growth

- pushing out the cofounder

- never making a profit

- hack that went undiscovered for months

About the only area she's had success is raising money and that's in large part thanks to being a member of the Silicon Valley elite.

you left out "ignored a letter from the FDA telling them to shut down"
Mathematically, the chance of a drug going from phase 2 to phase 3 is roughly 30%

This can be modeled with a binomial distribution as 1-probability of both failing. That comes out to 1-(.7^2) which is 51% of at least one drug reaching phase 3.

There is literally a coin flip chance the company will reach the stage where there is another coin flip it will be worth billions (I believe ~50% of phase 3 drugs go to market), but thanks to the messaging of the CEO, right now it seems like there is a near 0% chance investors (which include former company employees) would benefit from this.

Could the hack have been part of the plan all along to depress the share price to make for a cheap buy-out?
The board is making it clear that they don't think the CEO/largest shareholder is making good on their duty (as CEO) to the other shareholders.

"Good luck ......" or so.