Pharmaceutical regulatory filing citing a bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) paper — Rigel Pharmaceuticals, 2020-08-04
Rigel PharmaceuticalsRigel PharmaceuticalsNASDAQ RIGL
Filings SEC · Quote Yahoo cited a paper published on bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) 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 manner in which it wrote the paper and the actual scope presented in the paper in sequence. The stock price movement for one month following the filing was compared to past cases of the same type to determine its relative position. 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 something to inform shareholders, it files a 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rigel Pharmaceuticals filed this document on 2020-08-04, with item numbers 2.02 earnings announcement · 9.01 financial statements · attached documents. The company cited a paper published in bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) in the press release attached to it. If the sentence citing the paper is translated verbatim, it reads as follows:
Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG from severely ill COVID-19 patients promotes macrophage hyper-inflammatory responses. bioRxiv July 13, 2020. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.13.190140 2. Alimova M. et al.
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.
The scope of the paper mentioned in the abstract is limited to this.
The paper's title is Anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG from severely ill COVID-19 patients promotes macrophage hyper-inflammatory responses and it was published in bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) on 2020-07-13. The authors are affiliated with Amsterdam University Medical Centers, University of Amsterdam, Sanquin, and Leiden University Medical Center. The summary at the beginning of the paper is called abstract. This article has only read up to this point. The paragraph was written by a person after filtering out a draft written by a machine by comparing numbers, so it is of a different grade than a full reading of the paper.
This article is an experimental study published on bioRxiv, a preprint server. It showed through cell experiments that antibodies obtained from the serum of patients with severe COVID-19 excessively activate human macrophages, breaking down the barrier of lung blood vessels and creating microthrombi. This excessive inflammatory ability was associated with changes in the sugar chain of the antibody's tail. Using the active ingredient of an already approved drug, the response could be blocked in cell experiments, but whether the same occurs in 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 blanks 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 middle half 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 terms of the calendar, 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 | −7.5% | The extent of movement before the filing |
| On the day of the filing | +0.3% | On the filing day or the first trading day thereafter |
| Accumulated over +1 to +5 trading days | +0.5% | One week |
| +1~+20 trading day cumulative | −1.6% | 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 −1.6% in this case is within the bottom 61% of the 142 cases in the sample, 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% | −7.4% | +5.5% | +19.5% | −1.6% |
Half of the sample falls between the two central marks in the chart. One checks from the chart whether this case lies within or outside that 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 past facts, not rules to apply to the next case.
After the regulatory filing, the company issued such documents
After the filing date, the company issued three 8-K filings, listed here only by item number. In 8-K filings without titles, the item number indicates the type of content. One can determine whether it was an earnings announcement or a contract based on that number. What exactly occurred is read in the original text of each link.
- 2020-10-08 8-K Item 5.02 — Changes in Directors and Executive Officers
- 2020-11-05 8-K Item 2.02, 9.01 — Earnings Announcement · Financial Statements · Attached Documents
- 2021-01-11 8-K Item 2.02, 9.01 — Earnings Announcement · Financial Statements · Attached Documents
What This Article Does Not Answer
This article, which reads only the abstract, cannot answer what the paper reviewed, how it was done, or what it showed. How many times the company's paper has been cited afterward can be verified 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.
Glossary
- 8-K
- A voluntary report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission when a U.S. listed company has news 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 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 days when the stock market is open. Since weekends and holidays are excluded, 20 trading days are roughly a month on the calendar.
- Sample and percentile
- A bundle of past cases of the same type is the sample, and the position counted 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
- An abstract is 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 or limitations of the methods.