Pharmaceutical regulatory filing citing International Immunopharmacology paper — PDS Biotechnology, 2023-04-06
PDS BiotechnologyPDS BiotechnologyNASDAQ PDSB
Filings SEC · Quote Yahoo cited a paper published in International Immunopharmacology 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 it wrote the paper and the actual scope of the paper in sequence. It described where the stock price movement over the following month compared to past cases of the same type. This is a hindsight 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, it submits a current report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, called 8-K. The item numbers in the document submitted by PDS Biotechnology on 2023-04-06 were 8.01 Other Events · 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits. The company cited a paper published in International Immunopharmacology in the press release attached to it. If you copy the sentence citing the paper verbatim from the original text, it reads as follows.
I could not automatically find the sentence citing the paper in the press release. Check the original link. Do not replace it with another paragraph.
What readers see first is where the company placed the paper in the press release. Next is determining whether the paper supports the entire company claim or only part of it. To answer the latter question, you must read the full paper. This article, which reads only the abstract, cannot answer that.
The scope of the paper mentioned in the abstract is up to here.
The paper title is Immune correlates with response in patients with metastatic solid tumors treated with a tumor targeting immunocytokine NHS-IL12 and it was published in International Immunopharmacology on 2023-02-16. The authors' affiliations are National Institutes of Health · National Cancer Institute · Center for Cancer Research · The Ohio State University. 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 official judgment.
An immune analysis of the first trial in humans of NHS-IL12, a drug designed to adhere to necrotic tumor sites and deliver immune-stimulating substances locally. Fifty-nine patients received subcutaneous injections every four weeks, and later a group was added that received more frequent injections weekly. In the group receiving more frequent injections, immune activation markers increased significantly with higher doses. This is a study measuring immune responses. Whether the tumors shrank is outside the scope of this analysis.
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 in trading days, counting only days when the stock market is open. In calendar terms, 20 trading days is roughly one month. The excess return on the day of the filing and for the following month are shown in the table below.
| Period | Excess return relative to the market | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Five trading days before the filing | −8.2% | The extent of movement before the filing |
| On the filing date | +5.1% | On the filing date or the first trading day thereafter |
| Accumulated over +1 to +5 trading days | +20.8% | One week |
| Accumulated over +1 to +20 trading days | +11.3% | 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 +11.3% in this case is in the top quarter, corresponding to the 85% 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% | +19.5% | +11.3% |
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 ten years. The company itself is excluded from the sample. The numbers listed here are historical facts, not rules applicable to future cases.
Another case where the same company cited a paper in 8-K is included in the sample and placed in the table below.
| Disclosure date | Academic journal of the cited paper | Excess return over one month |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-03-14 | International Immunopharmacology | −10.0% |
Documents issued by the company after the disclosure
After the disclosure date, the company issued three 8-K filings. Only the item numbers are listed. 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 specific event is read in the original text of each link.
- 2023-04-12 8-K Item 8.01,9.01 — Other Events · Financial Statements · Exhibits
- 2023-04-21 8-K Item 8.01, 9.01 — Other Events · Financial Statements · Exhibits
- 2023-04-24 8-K Item 8.01, 9.01 — Other Events · Financial Statements · Exhibits
What this article does not answer
This article, which reads only abstracts, cannot answer what methods the paper used, what it reviewed, and how far it showed. How many times the paper cited by the company was cited afterward can be checked again through the OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website citation count. What will be seen next is whether the company's next 8-K again cites the same paper.
Explanation of terms
- 8-K
- A voluntary report submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission when a listed company has something to inform shareholders. The type is indicated by item numbers such as earnings, contracts, and executive changes. All events in this article come from this document.
- Excess return
- The remainder obtained by subtracting the market's overall return from the stock's return. It is used to observe the company's unique movement after removing the portion attributable to the market's collective rise or fall.
- Trading day
- A date counting only the 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, the details and limitations of the method cannot be known.