Biotechnology Reports paper cited in pharmaceutical filing — Soligenix, 2017-06-14
SoligenixSoligenixNASDAQ SNGX
Filings SEC · Quote Yahoo cited a paper published in Biotechnology Reports 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 recorded 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 like this in the press release
A U.S. listed company files a 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission when it needs to inform shareholders of material events. The item numbers in the document filed by Soligenix on 2017-06-14 were 5.02 Officer and Director Changes · 5.03 Bylaws Amendment · 5.07 Shareholders' Meeting Results · 7.01 Reg FD Public Statement · 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits. The company cited a paper published in Biotechnology Reports in the press release attached to it. If the sentence citing the paper is translated verbatim, it reads as follows.
Certain information contained in this presentation and statements made orally during this presentation relate to or are based on studies, publications, surveys and other data obtained from third - party sources .
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 read only the abstract, cannot provide an answer to that.
The scope of the paper mentioned in the abstract is limited to this.
The paper's title is Dusquetide: Reduction in oral mucositis associated with enduring ancillary benefits in tumor resolution and decreased mortality in head and neck cancer patients and it was published in Biotechnology Reports on 2017-05-16. The authors are affiliated with the University of Kentucky, University of Michigan, Michigan Medicine, and Willis-Knighton Cancer Center. The summary at the beginning of the paper is called abstract. This article has read only up to that point. This 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 and judgment of the original paper.
This study is a clinical trial in humans. Dusquetide treatment was applied to patients with oral cancer undergoing neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. The treatment was well tolerated, with no increase in infection or tumor growth. Long-term follow-up showed additional effects of the treatment. The specific mechanism of action of Dusquetide was not clarified.
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. The reader should compare the two citations above to determine which sentence in the abstract corresponds to the citation made by the company.
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 about a 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 | −6.3% | The extent of movement before the filing |
| On the day of the filing | −3.1% | On the filing day or the first trading day after |
| Accumulated over +1 to +5 trading days | −2.7% | One week |
| +1 to +20 trading days cumulative | −5.5% | 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 -5.5% in this case is within the bottom 52% 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% | −7.4% | +5.5% | +19.5% | −5.5% |
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 applicable to the next case.
There is one additional case where the same company wrote a paper in 8-K, so it is placed together in the table below.
| Disclosure date | the journal of the paper | excess return for one month |
|---|---|---|
| 2016-12-08 | Journal of Biotechnology | −5.1% |
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 specifics of what occurred are read in the original text of each link.
- 2017-09-29 8-K Item 7.01, 9.01 — Reg FD disclosure · financial statements · exhibits
- 2017-10-11 8-K Item 7.01 — Reg FD Disclosure
- 2017-10-31 8-K Item 1.01,3.02,9.01 — Material Contract Execution · Unregistered Securities Sale · Financial Statements and Exhibits
What This Article Does Not Answer
This article, which reads only abstracts, cannot answer how the paper re-examined what and showed up to where using what methods. How many times the paper cited by the company has been cited afterward can be rechecked via OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website citation counts. 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 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 attributable to the overall market fluctuation.
- 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.