Pharmaceutical filing citing an Annals of Oncology paper — Zymeworks, 2022-12-19
ZymeworksZymeworksNASDAQ ZYME
Filings SEC · Quote Google cited a paper published in Annals of Oncology in its regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Regulator · Website. The company read the paper in the order it was written and the scope it actually demonstrated. The stock price movement for one month after the filing was 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, the report submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission is called 8-K. The item numbers of the document submitted by Zymeworks on 2022-12-19 were 8.01 Other Events · 9.01 Financial Statements and Exhibits. The company cited a paper published in Annals of Oncology in the attached press release. If the sentence citing the paper is translated verbatim, it reads as follows.
Ann Oncol doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annonc.2022.10.506 “We are thrilled to report these positive topline data from the HERIZON-BTC-01 clinical trial, which further support the potential of zanidatamab as a new chemotherapy-free therapeutic option for HER2-amplified and expressing BTC.
What readers should first look at is where the company placed the paper in the press release. Next, they 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 only read the abstract, cannot provide an answer.
The scope of the paper discussed in the abstract is limited to this extent.
The paper title is Biliary tract cancer: ESMO Clinical Practice Guideline for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up and it was published in Annals of Oncology on 2022-11-10. The authors' affiliations are Medizinische Hochschule Hannover · University College LondonUniversity College London
University · United Kingdom · Website · Inserm · Oncogenesis Stress Signaling. The summary published at the beginning of the paper is called abstract. This article only read 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 of a different grade from a full-text reading and original judgment.
This document is not a paper but clinical guidelines for biliary tract cancer issued by the European Society for Medical Oncology. Since there is no abstract, it was not summarized, and the only thing that can be known from the title is that it is a document collecting recommendations on diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of biliary tract cancer. Which recommendation the company cited is confirmed from the above quotation and the original text.
The abstract does not answer; it remains in the main text and the appendix. This text, which does not go there, leaves the blank as it is. Readers compare the two citations above to determine which sentence in the abstract corresponds to the excerpt cited by the company.
One month later, the stock price was within the top quarter of the sample.
The portion of returns not explained by market-wide movements is called excess return. Dates are recorded as trading days, 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 presented in the table below.
| Period | Excess return relative to the market | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 5 trading days before the filing | −3.1% | The extent to which the stock moved before the filing |
| regulatory filing day | +6.5% | filing day or the first trading day thereafter |
| cumulative +1~+5 trading days | +18.7% | one week |
| cumulative +1~+20 trading days | +23.9% | 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 +23.9% in this case is in the top quarter, corresponding to the 93% percentile 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% | +18.7% | +23.9% |
Half of the sample falls between the two middle marks in the table. Check the table to see whether this case falls inside or outside of that range. The sample consists of cases where U.S.-listed companies cited papers in 8-K filings over the past decade. The company itself is excluded from the sample. The numbers listed here are historical facts, not rules to apply to future cases.
After the filing, the company submitted these documents.
After the filing date, this company submitted 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. Whether it was an earnings announcement or a contract can be identified by the number. The details of what occurred are read in the original text via each link.
- 2022-12-21 8-K Items 7.01, 8.01, 9.01 — Reg FD disclosure · Other events · Financial statements · Attached documents
- 2022-12-30 8-K Items 5.02, 9.01 — Executive and director changes · Financial statements · Attached documents
- 2023-01-04 8-K Items 2.02, 5.02, 8.01, 9.01 — Earnings announcement · Executive and director changes · Other events · Financial statements · Attached documents
What this article does not answer
This article, which reads only abstracts, cannot answer how the paper re-examined what, using what methods, and up to what extent. How many times the company's paper has been cited afterward can be re-verified through the citation count on OpenAlexOpenAlex
Data source · Website. The next thing to look at 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 type is indicated by item numbers such as performance, 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 itself by removing the portion that reflects the overall market rise and 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 appearing 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 methods.