Regulatory filing citing a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine — Biocryst Pharmaceuticals, 2018-07-26
Biocryst PharmaceuticalsBiocryst PharmaceuticalsNASDAQ BCRX
Filings SEC · Quote Yahoo cited a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine as a basis for its claims in a regulatory filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Regulator · Website. The company read the manner in which the paper was written and the scope it actually demonstrated in sequence. The stock price movement over the following month was compared to past cases of the same type to determine its position. This is a retrospective judgment written after knowing the results. The paper was read only up to the abstract.
The disclosure wrote the paper in the press release like this
When a U.S. listed company has something to inform shareholders, the unscheduled report it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission is called 8-K. The item number of the document filed by Biocryst Pharmaceuticals on 2018-07-26 was 7.01 Reg FD disclosure · 9.01 financial statements · attached documents. The company cited a paper published in New England Journal of Medicine in the attached press release. The sentence citing the paper, copied verbatim from the original, is as follows.
“We are extremely pleased to have these important results published in The New England Journal of Medicine ,” said Jon P Stonehouse, President and Chief Executive Officer of BioCryst.
What readers should look at first is where the company placed the paper in the press release. Next, they should determine whether the paper supports the entire company claim or only part of it. To answer the latter question, one must read the full paper. This article, which reads only the abstract, cannot provide an answer.
The scope of the paper discussed in the abstract is limited to this extent.
The paper's title is Oral Plasma Kallikrein Inhibitor for Prophylaxis in Hereditary Angioedema and it was published in New England Journal of Medicine on 2018-07-25. The authors' affiliations are Goethe University Frankfurt · Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology · University Hospital Frankfurt · Odense University Hospital. The summary published at the beginning of the paper is called abstract. What this article has read is only up to there. This paragraph was rewritten by a person after filtering a draft written by a machine reading the abstract through numerical comparison, so it is a different grade from a full-text reading and a definitive judgment.
BCX7353, an oral drug for hereditary angioedema, a genetic disease causing sudden swelling of the face and neck, was tested in four doses over 28 days, comparing the number of attacks to a placebo. Seventy-seven patients who had more than two attacks per month were randomly assigned, and 72 completed the trial. Attacks confirmed in the group taking more than 125 mg per day were significantly fewer than the placebo, with a difference of 73.8% at 125 mg. Since the trial lasted one month, the long-term effectiveness and safety of prolonged use are not included in this paper.
What the abstract does not answer remains in the full text and appendices. This article leaves gaps as gaps. Readers are to judge for themselves which sentence in the abstract corresponds to the cited excerpts from the company, by comparing the two citations above.
One month later, the stock price was in the top quarter of the sample.
The remaining return after subtracting the portion that moves with the overall market is called excess return. Dates are counted as trading days, meaning only the days the stock market is open. On a calendar, 20 trading days are roughly one month. The excess return on the day of the regulatory filing and for the following month are listed in the table below.
| Period | Excess return relative to the market | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Five trading days before the filing | −4.7% | The extent of movement before the filing |
| On the filing day | −0.4% | On the filing day or the first trading day thereafter |
| Accumulated over +1 to +5 trading days | +4.8% | One week |
| Accumulated over +1 to +20 trading days | +22.3% | One month |
A bundle of past cases of the same type is called a sample. The position counted from the bottom is expressed as a percentile. The one-month excess return of +22.3% in this case is in the top quarter, corresponding to the 92% position from the bottom among 142 cases in the sample.
| Sample scale (20 trading days) | Tenth from the bottom | Fourth from the bottom | Median | Top 25% | Top 10% | This case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excess return | −31.9% | −20.1% | −7.4% | +5.5% | +18.7% | +22.3% |
Half of the sample falls between the two central marks on the chart. One checks the chart to see whether this case lies within or outside the range. The sample collects cases where U.S.-listed companies cited papers in 8-K filings over the past decade. The company itself is excluded from the sample. The numbers listed here are historical facts, not rules applicable to future cases.
After the regulatory filing, the company issued such documents.
Three 8-K filings issued by the company after the filing date are listed by item number only. In 8-K filings without titles, item numbers indicate the type of content. One can determine whether it was an earnings announcement or a contract based on the item number. The specific event is read in the original text via each link.
- 2018-08-06 8-K Item 7.01, 9.01 — Reg FD Disclosure · Financial Statements · Exhibits
- 2018-08-06 8-K Item 8.01, 9.01 — Other Events · Financial Statements · Exhibits
- 2018-08-07 8-K Items 2.02,7.01,9.01 — Earnings announcement · Reg FD disclosure · Financial statements·attached documents
What this article does not answer
This article, based only on abstracts, cannot answer what methods the paper used, what it reviewed, or how far it demonstrated. How many times the cited paper was subsequently cited can be verified again using the citation count from OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website. What will be examined next is whether the company's next 8-K filing cites the same paper again.
Glossary
- 8-K
- A voluntary report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission when a U.S. listed company has something to inform shareholders. Types are indicated by item numbers such as earnings, contracts, and executive changes. All events in this article come from this document.
- Excess return
- The remainder after subtracting the overall market return from the stock return. It is used to see the movement of the company alone by removing the part where the market as a whole rises or falls.
- Trading day
- A date counting only the days the stock market is open. Since weekends and holidays are excluded, 20 trading days are about a month in the calendar.
- Sample and percentile
- A bundle of past cases of the same type is a sample, and the position from the bottom is expressed as a percentile. A percentile of 10 means that nine out of ten cases performed better than this case.
- Abstract
- A summary placed at the beginning of a paper. The author writes in a few sentences what was done, how it was done, and what results were obtained. Without reading the full paper, one cannot know the details and limitations of the method.