The Next Great Medical Stock Is Breaking Out…I Need Your Help Researching It Please

Posted by Timothy Sykes on Thu 15th of Oct, 2009 04:50:05 PM

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Earlier today I sent this to TIMalert subscribers:

Bought 1500 Vermillion Inc. (VRMLQ) at $16.79…trust me, this is the last thing I want to be doing right now, I’m in Vegas trying to finish the instruction manual for my seminar this weekend, trying to visit Blogworld, trying to see a bit of Vegas, not to mention this is a Pink Sheet company (meaning fast executions aren’t easy), its got a Q on the ticker meaning its bankrupt (and if they reorganize, there’s a chance all current stock holders get wiped out entirely) but this stock just keeps uptrending gradually right near its breakout highs of $17.05 and more importantly, it’s got one heck of a story/setup.
Basically they were a sad bankrupt medical company until they got FDA approval for their Ovarian Cancer test just over a month ago and the stock has shot up from 5 cents/share to $17…sounds excessive, right? Well if you do any digging, you’d see that this test could be a multi-hundred million or billion dollar product, especially considering international and related product sales…they have a bigtime partner in $10 billion Quest Diagnostics (DGX) who is also a debtholder and just converted some in the $9 range and from who VRMLQ will earn royalties, anywhere from 5-25%, but nobody’s sure…there’s already competing tests on the market, but they’re not very accurate so this test is pretty much a gimme. With a $110ish million marketcap right now, whether VRMLQ gets 5% or 25% of a $200 million-$1 billion product, it looks pretty cheap ($10 to $50 million or $50 million to $250 million in royalty payments, I know its all over the place but hard research is tough to come by, i just know that the potential is huge for such a small marketcap company)

The only thing holding this back are 2 hedge funds that own a lot of debt and can basically make this company reorganize..but if the stock is over $20, it looks like those hedge funds will just convert into stock, making bankruptcy out of the question…it’s all very complicated and obviously risky and I don’t understand it all, but given the FDA approval, the big name partner that just gave VRMLQ a vote of confidence in the $9 range, the recent gradual price action, its ability to hold near its highs and most importantly the fact that this has broken out strongly several time, $2, 3 even $4/share in a day means the upside is great and if I’m right about $20 being a key number for debtholders, then if it does get one its famous multi-dollar spikes, my goal is to sell at $21+ in the next few days…very speculative, but the risk/reward seems pretty good here…rest assured if it doesnt breakout past $17, i will close my position and cut losses/gains quickly so as not to risk a big loss…potential upside of $5+, potential loss of $1, I’ll take it any day.

PS Their old chief scientist just rejoined the firm and as of Sept 30, there were 182,000 shares short (who presumably get squeezed every time this thing breakout, explaining its ability to jump $3-$4/day)

And while the stock closed at $18, a PERFECT breakout above the $17 resistance (the previous 2 breakouts, it went from $4 to $8 in one day and then $14 to $17 in 3 days..how high will this one go?):

vrmlq The Next Great Medical Stock Is Breaking Out...I Need Your Help Researching It Please

…and a decent $1,800 profit for me so far (still holding overnight, I think this goes to the $20s) and several TIMalert subscribers made some nice gains:

Pinksheet stocks are so hard to fill. Took me ages to fill 1K shares VRMLQ @16.965. Wow, already up $700.
-Bill

Scalped +$236.53 out of VRMLQ, holding 500 shares from $16.9911…+$305.97 on my other 500 shares couldn’t resist profits.
-Reaper

up $3k on this one.bght in at 13.80.Thanks Tim
-zeccotrader

out at $18.25. Quick $310 profit.
-alex F.

But I have no time to do my usually intense research…I mean I put in about 2 hours before buying the stock (as it is always risky to buy a Pink Sheet stock, especially a bankrupt company!), but I like going overboard with 6-8 hours of research at night…which I just don’t have tonight because:

a. ) I’m working my butt off finishing this instruction manual for Sunday/Monday’s seminar (you can still purchase live webinar access)

b.) I’m working on my presentation for my Saturday afternoon speaking at Blogworld

c.) I’d like to actually Blogworld a bit today!

So I’m asking for your help in researching this company and their Ovarian Cancer test tonight…what is the true market potential for this product? What royalty fees are they getting? What’s the situation with their bankruptcy possibilities and the hedge funds as debtholders?

Please post anything you find below, and please just be honest…I think this stock has huge potential (remember the oil plays from several months ago that went from the low single digits tot he $30s and $40s before fading?), but I could be wrong. Thanks in advance!

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  • F8kBoitimmy
    tim ur gay!
  • fogelbaby
    As a practicing OB/GYN physician, I am exactly the target for this product, and at this point I am not convinced it will be a success. First of all, you need to understand that this is not an "ovarian cancer test." At this point, there is no evidence that it can be used as a screening test for ovarian cancer in a low risk population, or in any population for that matter. The only thing they claim to be able to do is to risk stratify women who have known ovarian masses, so that those of higher risk can be referred to a gynecologic oncologist (specialist in gynecologic cancer) for surgery rather than having surgery performed by a generalist OB/GYN physician (a normal OB/GYN that delivers babies and does general gynecology.) This isn't of great value to me. Most prudent generalist OB/GYNs already refer patients that have masses that have a high risk of having cancer. The frequency that an ovarian mass would be cancer when it was thought to be benign before surgery is pretty low, so low in fact that in my mind it would be hard to justify spending a great deal of money to identify which ones they are.

    When you look at a test like this, you need to calculate the number of dollars per women-year saved - how much do you need to spend to save one year of one person's life. In this case, the way the test would save a life-year would be to get a patient who has an ovarian cancer that otherwise would have been operated on by a generalist ob/gyn to be operated on by a gynecologic cancer physician, which would give her a slim survival advantage. The problem is that this is a very small thing. Its a slice of a slice of a slice of a slice, but to get this tiny slice-ito you need to pay for the whole pie. So ultimately you are paying a huge amount of money to identify one patient, and in that patient you are only going to make a subtle change in her management. Not clearly worth it, in my opinion.

    Here's the deep low down thing - I doubt the company ever intended the test to be used this way.

    That's right - I doubt this is what they ever wanted.

    They were looking for a way to screen for ovarian cancer in a low risk population, which is an absolute holy grail. The problem is that they failed. And this is not surprising, as at present there has not been a single chemical test ever proven to identify _any type of cancer_ in low risk populations, except possibly the PSA test. Ovarian cancer is particularly difficult, because the hormones and markers it secretes are secreted in many non-malignant processes, which is why the CA-125 test cannot be used reliably to screen.

    By working a bunch of numbers and testing in a very high risk population (women with pre-existing ovarian tumors), they found a some kind of statistical significance between their test result and a clinical outcome. But honestly the benefit of this test is so low, that it can't be what they were going for in the first place. The market just isn't big enough. They didn't hit what they were looking for, and now they are trying to salvage something from it. Note that on their website they list ovarian cancer screening (the holy grail) as a developing prospect, but not as the product they are selling.

    Because this test is so new, and its benefit questionable at best, it will be considered experimental by insurers for many years, and perhaps forever. That means that insurers will not pay for the test. Patients can still have it done, but they will have to pay for it out of pocket, which will discourage use. Only after solid data is produced that the use of this test improves clinical outcomes will insurers pay for it on a widespread basis. That data does not exist now, and may never exist. FDA approval does not mean clinical and commercial success!

    Another problem is that these things do not always continue to have positive data when they go to larger clinical trials. One proteonomic test that claimed to be successful at identifying ovarian cancer in a low risk population (OvaSure) got pulled from the market after launch by the FDA after further clinical data found their test to be near-worthless. Sequenom recently went from $4 to over $24 on data that showed a near perfect track record for their Down Syndrome screening test for pregnant women, only to crash when it turned out that the data was faulty, and likely fabricated by members of their research team.

    So jump in and take some profit while there is some excitement, but I wouldn't plan on some huge long term success. I would not consider it "the next big medical stock yet." Its still _highly_ speculative, and should be treated as such. There is tons of room for this thing to fail, and no strong evidence so far that they won't.

    If you want the next big medical stock, think Intuitive Surgical. They have already gone big, but man I think they will go bigger. Their technology is totally game changing, and everybody wants to use it.
  • thanks agreed this is speculative and ISRg is better, but lets just say the test works, whats the market size? thats what really matters here, the potential so the debtholders allow it to play out because the risk/reward favors that, then its a question of valuation
  • fogelbaby
    Honestly I don't know. Even if the data continues to be good I'm not sure the test will be valuable enough to be worth the money. If I were an insurer reviewing whether or not to pay for this test, I would definitely say no. But clearly others disagree with this, and they may be right.
  • fogelbaby
    And on top of that, their website is totally gank. It gives me an uneasy feeling looking at it, like it is the front for a nonsense company.
  • mudhole
    YO T DOGG Dont worry bro, mudhole's on the case. Hey man I got some real good ideas for this one. thinkin that maybe theres some really funny bizness goin on here. heres the plan stan I gotta go and finish hauling some crap outa my naybors celler tomw. Now shes got cancer or had cancer or somethin to do wit cancer no what im sayin?>also she dont havfe no money so i figer shes bankQ to so thats a start Then i gotta stop by always payday and ill ask the bitch at thye counter what she knows. Shes a slut but also kinda smart and then shit gotta go nags yellin arf arf mudhole
  • JewGorT
    Sykes you're gonna be out the stock tomorrow. You don't need anymore info. I'd dump at the open if I were you. The risk isn't 5 to 1. The risk is the stock is halted and you lost your entire 26K investment.

    Dump it first thing at the open
  • nah good chance of a big short squeeze, its gapped $3+/share before, if we get to $20, its a game changer
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