Regulatory filing citing a biological product based on an Alzheimer s Research & Therapy paper — Inmune Bio, 2020-01-02
Inmune BioInmune BioNASDAQ INMB
Filings SEC · Quote Yahoo cited a paper published in Alzheimer s Research & Therapy in its regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Regulator · Website as the basis for its claims. The company read the way it wrote the paper and the actual scope the paper demonstrated in order. The stock price movement for one month after the filing was written in comparison 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 number of the document submitted by Inmune Bio on 2020-01-02 was 7.01 Reg FD Public · 9.01 Financial Statements · Attached Documents. The company cited a paper published in Alzheimer s Research & Therapy in the attached press release. If the sentence citing the paper is translated verbatim, it reads as follows.
“This data further supports the rationale of our current trial of XPro1595 as a novel way to treat Alzheimer’s disease by targeting neuroinflammation which may also improve cognition and rescue neuronal communication in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.” An online version of the publication is available here: https://alzres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13195-019-0546-4 Facts and Figures from the Alzheimer’s Association state that more than 5.8 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s and by 2050 the number is projected to rise to nearly 14 million people.
What readers should first look at 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 answer it.
The scope of the paper mentioned in the abstract is up to here.
The paper title is Targeting soluble tumor necrosis factor as a potential intervention to lower risk for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease associated with obesity, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes and it was published in Alzheimer s Research & Therapy on 2019-12-31. The authors' affiliations are Emory University · Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai · University of Florida · Florida College. The summary published at the beginning of the paper is called abstract. What this article read was 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 original judgment.
This experiment in mice examines how insulin resistance and inflammation, common to diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, progress. Mice were fed a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet for 14 weeks, and the tumor necrosis factor signal was blocked using drug XPro1595, which prevents it from entering the brain. The metabolic and immune changes in the gut, liver, and brain were then observed. The diet disrupted insulin responses in the brain and disturbed immune regulatory genes. Metabolites linked to diabetes and Alzheimer's also changed. Since this is a mouse study, whether the drug reduces Alzheimer's risk in humans is beyond the scope of this paper.
What the abstract does not answer remains in the full text and appendices. This article leaves the gaps as they are. Readers are to determine which sentences in the abstract correspond to the company's cited excerpts by comparing the two citations above.
A month later, the stock price was in the bottom quarter of the sample.
The remaining return after subtracting the portion that moves with the overall market is called excess return. Dates are counted in 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 filing and for the following month are listed in the table below.
| Period | Excess return relative to the market | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 5 trading days before the filing | −0.3% | The extent of movement before the filing |
| On the filing date | +5.3% | On the filing date or the first trading day afterward |
| Cumulative over +1 to +5 trading days | −2.7% | One week |
| Cumulative over +1 to +20 trading days | −20.9% | 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 -20.9% for this case is within the bottom quarter, at 23% 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% | −6.9% | +5.5% | +19.5% | −20.9% |
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 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 applicable to future cases.
After the filing, the company issued such documents.
Three 8-K filings issued by the company after the filing date are listed only by item number. In 8-K filings without titles, item numbers indicate the type of content. Whether it was an earnings announcement or a contract can be identified by the number. The specific event is read in the original text via each link.
- 2020-01-13 8-K Item 7.01, 9.01 — Reg FD Disclosure · Financial Statements · Exhibits
- 2020-01-27 8-K Items 1.01,9.01 — Material contract execution · financial statements·attached documents
- 2020-02-10 8-K Items 1.01,7.01,9.01 — Material contract execution · 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 what extent it demonstrated. How many times the cited paper was subsequently cited can be verified again via the OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website citation count. What will be examined next is whether the company's next 8-K again cites the same paper.
Glossary
- 8-K
- A voluntary report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission when a U.S. listed company has something to inform shareholders. It is categorized 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 observe the movement of the company alone by removing the portion where the market as a whole rises or falls.
- Trading day
- A date counting only the days when 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 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 paper, one cannot know the details and limitations of the method.