Pharmaceutical filing citing Journal of Endocrinological Investigation paper — Lipocine, 2021-03-04
LipocineLipocineNASDAQ LPCN
Filings SEC · Quote Yahoo cited a paper published in the Journal of Endocrinological Investigation in its regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Regulator · Website as a basis for its claims. The company read the way it wrote the paper and the scope the paper actually showed 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 is written in the press release as follows:
When a U.S. listed company has an event to inform shareholders, the form it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission is called 8-K. The item numbers in the document filed by Lipocine on 2021-03-04 were 8.01 Other Events · 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits. The company cited a paper published in Journal of Endocrinological Investigation in the press release attached to it. If the sentence citing the paper is translated verbatim, it reads as follows.
EX-99.1 2 tm218626d1_ex99-1.htm EXHIBIT 99.1 Exhibit 99.1 Lipocine Announces Publication in Journal of Endocrinological Investigation Highlighting the Potential of LPCN 1144 in the Treatment of NASH and Hepatic Fibrosis SALT LAKE CITY, March 4, 2021 -- Lipocine Inc. (NASDAQ: LPCN), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on metabolic and endocrine disorders, today announced the publication of preclinical results supporting the therapeutic potential of LPCN 1144 in the treatment of and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (“NASH”) and hepatic fibrosis.
What the reader should first check is where the company placed the paper in the press release. Next, the reader 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 has only read the abstract, cannot provide an answer to that.
The scope of the paper discussed in the abstract is limited to this.
The paper's title is Treatment potential of LPCN 1144 on liver health and metabolic regulation in a non-genomic, high fat diet induced NASH rabbit model and it was published in Journal of Endocrinological Investigation on 2021-02-13. The authors are affiliated with University of Florence · Lipocine (United States) · Istituto Nazionale Biostrutture e Biosistemi. The summary at the beginning of the paper is referred to as abstract. This article has only read up to this point. This paragraph was rewritten by a person after filtering a draft written by a machine by comparing numbers, so it is of a different grade than a full reading of the paper.
This is an animal study that tested an oral testosterone precursor drug in rabbits, starting from the observation that low male hormones worsen fatty liver inflammation. Rabbits with metabolic syndrome and fatty liver inflammation induced by a high-fat diet were divided into five groups and compared with vitamin E. The study examined how fibrosis and fatty liver inflammation findings changed in liver tissue and molecular indicators. Since this is a rabbit study, whether the same results occur in human patients is beyond the scope of this paper.
What the abstract does not answer remains in the full paper and its appendices. This article, which has not gone beyond the abstract, leaves the gaps as they are. Readers should determine which sentence in the abstract corresponds to the cited section cited by the company by comparing the two citations above.
One month later, the stock price was within the upper quartile of the sample.
The remaining return after subtracting the portion that moves with the overall market is called excess return. The date is written as trading day, counting only the days the stock market is open. In calendar terms, 20 trading days are approximately one month. The excess return for the day of the regulatory filing and the following month are listed in the table below.
| Period | Excess return relative to the market | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Five trading days before the filing | −8.6% | The extent of movement before the filing |
| On the day of the filing | +1.8% | On the filing day or the first trading day thereafter |
| Accumulated over +1 to +5 trading days | +11.5% | One week |
| Cumulative +1~+20 trading days | +8.7% | 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 +8.7% in this case is within the top quarter, corresponding to the 80% from the bottom among 142 samples.
| 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% | +19.5% | +8.7% |
Half of the sample falls between the two central marks in the chart. One checks from the chart whether this case lies inside or outside. The sample collects cases where U.S. listed companies wrote papers in 8-K over the past ten years. The company itself is excluded from the sample. The numbers written here are past facts, not rules to apply to the next case.
There are three additional cases where the same company wrote papers in 8-K, and they are placed together in the table below.
| Disclosure date | the journal of the paper | a month of excess return |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-08-03 | Hepatology Communications | −10.3% |
| 2020-09-14 | Hepatology Communications | +4.1% |
| 2020-09-21 | Hepatology Communications | −20.1% |
after the filing, the company issued such documents
after the filing date, the company issued 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, so one can determine whether it was an earnings announcement or a contract by the number. The specific event is read in the original text of each link.
- 2021-03-11 8-K Item 8.01, 9.01 — Other Events · Financial Statements and Exhibits
- 2021-03-19 8-K Item 8.01, 9.01 — Other Events · Financial Statements · Exhibits
- 2021-03-30 8-K Item 8.01, 9.01 — Other Events · Financial Statements · Exhibits
What this article does not answer
This article, which reads only abstracts, does not answer how the paper reviewed what methods and what results it showed. How often the paper cited by the company has been cited afterward can be checked again using the OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website citation count. What will be seen next is whether the company's next 8-K filing cites the same paper again.
Term explanation
- 8-K
- A periodic report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission when a listed company in the United States has something to inform its shareholders. The types are indicated by item numbers such as earnings, contracts, and executive changes. All events in this article are derived from this document.
- Excess return
- The remainder obtained by subtracting the overall market return from the stock return. It is used to observe the movement of the company alone after removing the portion where the market as a whole rises or falls.
- Trading day
- A date counted only on days when the stock market is open. Since weekends and holidays are excluded, 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 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 method.