Pharmaceutical filing citing a Nature Medicine paper — Bioxcel Therapeutics, 2018-07-24
Bioxcel TherapeuticsBioxcel TherapeuticsUS BTAI
cited a paper published in Nature MedicineNature Medicine
Journal · Website as a basis for its claims in a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Regulator · Website. The company read the way it wrote the paper and the actual scope of the paper in sequence. It noted where the stock price movement over the following month compared to past cases of the same type. 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 report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission is called 8-K. The item numbers of the document submitted by Bioxcel Therapeutics on 2018-07-24 were 8.01 Other Events · 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits. The company cited a paper published in Nature Medicine in the attached press release. The sentence citing the paper, copied verbatim from the original, is as follows.
DPP8/DPP9 inhibitor-induced pyroptosis for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia.” Nat Med (2018), PMID: 29967349; DOI:10.1038/s41591-018-0082-y (2) Okondo, Marian C., et al. “DPP8 and DPP9 inhibition induces pro-caspase-1-dependent monocyte and macrophage pyroptosis.” Nat Chem Biol 13.1 (2017): 46-53.
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 a part of it. To answer the latter question, one must read the full paper. This article, which only read 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 DPP8/DPP9 inhibitor-induced pyroptosis for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia and it was published in Nature Medicine on 2018-06-29. The authors' affiliations are Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center · Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Chemical Biology · Cornell University. The summary published at the beginning of the paper is called abstract. What this article read was only up to that point. This paragraph was rewritten by a person after filtering a draft written by a machine reading the abstract through numerical comparison, so it is of a different grade from a full-text reading and original judgment.
The abstract of this paper is not publicly available, so it was not summarized. What can be understood from the title is that it is an experimental study aiming to treat acute myeloid leukemia by inducing cancer cells to rupture and die by blocking enzymes DPP8 and DPP9. It is not possible to determine whether the results are from human patients or cell and animal experiments based solely on the title.
The abstract does not answer; the details remain in the main text and the appendix. This article, which does not go there, leaves the blank as it is. Readers compare the two citations above to determine which sentence in the abstract corresponds to the excerpt cited by the company.
A month later, the stock price was within the middle half of the sample.
The return excluding the portion attributable to market-wide movement is called excess return. The dates are recorded as trading days, counting only the days the stock market is open. In terms of the calendar, 20 trading days are approximately one month. The excess return on the day of the regulatory filing and for the following month are presented in the table below.
| Period | Excess return relative to the market | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 5 trading days before the filing | −11.1% | The extent to which the stock had already moved before the filing |
| regulatory filing day | −10.5% | filing day or first trading day thereafter |
| +1~+5 trading day cumulative | +1.0% | one week |
| +1~+20 trading day cumulative | −12.3% | 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 -12.3% in this case is within the bottom 40% of the 142 samples, placing it in the lower half.
| 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% | −6.9% | +5.5% | +19.5% | −12.3% |
Half of the sample falls between the two middle marks in the table. Check the table to see whether this case falls inside or outside of that range. The sample consists of 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 to apply to future cases.
After the filing, the company submitted these documents.
After the filing date, this company submitted three 8-K filings. Only the item numbers are listed here. In 8-K filings without titles, the item numbers indicate the type of content. Whether it was an earnings announcement or a contract can be identified by the number. The details of what occurred are read in the original text via each link.
- 2018-08-08 8-K Item 2.02, 9.01 — Earnings announcement · Financial statements · Attached documents
- 2018-08-23 8-K Item 1.01, 9.01 — Significant contract signing · Financial statements · Attached documents
- 2018-09-26 8-K Item 1.01, 8.01, 9.01 — Significant contract signing · Other events · Financial statements · Attached documents
What this article does not answer
This article, which reads only abstracts, cannot answer how the paper re-examined what, using what methods, and up to what extent. How many times the paper cited by the company has been cited afterward can be rechecked via the citation count on OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website. What will be seen next is whether the company's next 8-K again cites the same paper.
Term Explanation
- 8-K
- A periodic report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission by a U.S.-listed company when it needs to inform shareholders of an event. The type of report is indicated by item numbers such as earnings, contracts, or executive changes. All events in this article are derived from this document.
- Excess return
- The portion of a stock's return that remains after subtracting the overall market return. It is used to isolate the movement specific to the company, excluding the general market trend.
- Trading day
- A count of days when the stock market is open. Weekends and holidays are excluded, so 20 trading days correspond to approximately one calendar month.
- Sample and percentile
- A bundle of past cases of the same type is a sample, and the position from the bottom within it 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 text, one cannot know the details and limitations of the methods.