Medical device filing citing Journal of Cosmetic and Laser Therapy paper — Strata Skin Sciences, 2024-07-17
Strata Skin SciencesStrata Skin SciencesUS SSKN
cited a paper published in the Journal of Cosmetic and Laser Therapy as the basis for its claims in a regulatory filing with 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 the paper demonstrated in sequence. The stock price movement for one month after the filing was compared to past cases of the same type to determine its position. This is a retrospective 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
When a U.S. listed company has something to inform its shareholders, the form it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission is called 8-K. The item numbers in the document filed by Strata Skin Sciences on 2024-07-17 were 7.01 Reg FD disclosure and 9.01 financial statements · attached documents. The company cited a paper published in Journal of Cosmetic and Laser Therapy in the press release attached to it. If the sentence citing the paper is translated verbatim, it reads as follows.
Photopneumatic therapy is emerging as a viable treatment modality, and it is gratifying to see proven results in a growing number of investigator-initiated studies.” The full study can be accessed with the following link: https://doi.org/10.1080/14764172.2024.2376704 About STRATA Skin Sciences STRATA Skin Sciences is a medical technology company dedicated to developing, commercializing, and marketing innovative products for the in-office treatment of various dermatologic conditions, such as psoriasis, vitiligo, and acne.
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 company's entire 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 discussed in the abstract is limited to this.
The paper's title is Advancing precision acne therapy using a novel photopneumatic device and it was published in Journal of Cosmetic and Laser Therapy on 2024-05-18. The authors are affiliated with Dermatology, Laser & Vein Specialists of the Carolinas and Wake Forest University. The summary at the beginning of the paper is called abstract. This article has read only up to this point. The paragraph was written by a person after filtering a draft generated by a machine through numerical comparison, so it is of a different grade than a full reading of the paper.
A small observational report on seven acne patients who were treated with a device combining vacuum and broad-spectrum light. Treatments were administered up to six times, with intervals of one or two weeks, for fifteen to twenty minutes each time, with settings adjusted for each individual. Improvement in lesions, redness, and skin texture, including pores, was observed after one to three treatments. Adverse effects were rare. This report, which observed only seven individuals without a control group, is not a study that can determine effectiveness.
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 for themselves which sentence in the abstract corresponds to the excerpt 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 | −4.4% | The extent of movement before the filing |
| On the day of the filing | −4.1% | On the filing day or the first trading day after |
| Accumulated over +1 to +5 trading days | +7.1% | One week |
| Cumulative +1~+20 trading days | −1.1% | 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 −1.1% in this case is within the bottom 63% of the 142 samples and is within 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% | −1.1% |
Half of the sample falls between the two marks in the middle of the table. One checks from the table whether this case is 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.
After the regulatory filing, the company issued such documents
After the filing date, the company issued three 8-K filings, listed only by item numbers. 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 happened is read in the original text of each link.
- 2024-07-23 8-K Item 7.01, 9.01 — Reg FD Disclosure · Financial Statements · Exhibits
- 2024-08-14 8-K Items 2.02,7.01,9.01 — Earnings announcement · Reg FD disclosure · Financial statements·attached documents
- 2024-08-26 8-K Item 7.01, 9.01 — Reg FD Disclosure · Financial Statements · Exhibits
What this article does not answer
This article, which reads only the abstract, cannot answer what method the paper used, what it reviewed, and how far it went. The number of times the company's cited paper has been cited afterward can be verified again through the OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website citation count. The next thing to look at is whether the company's next 8-K will cite the same paper again.
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 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
- 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.