Jason Kish became a Portfolio Manager at Prospector Partners, LLC in 2013 and has been with the investment manager since December 1997. He is also a portfolio manager of Prospector Partners Asset Management, LLC. Mr. Kish has been a portfolio manager or securities analyst for more than 20 years.
In this 3,846 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Kish details the investment philosophy that guides his firm’s portfolio management.
“Initially, the product offered was a financial-services-focused long/short fund. And then, down the road, in 2007, we added the two mutual funds, the Prospector Opportunity Fund (MUTF:POPFX) and the Prospector Capital Appreciation Fund (MUTF:PCAFX).
Not ideal timing for a value shop ahead of a long period of growth dominating and just ahead of the great financial crisis, but we’ve done OK with the funds.
And then, we became subadviser for a 1940 Act long/short fund, LSOFX, about five years ago.
Today, we have 14 employees. We manage about $700 million in assets. There are four PMs, myself included, who also function as analysts.
We get our hands very dirty in the research process. And we have three industry-specialist analysts… I would say how we feel we differ from many managers is we focus on the downside first for every idea.
We first ask, “How much could we lose?” where we feel a lot of people look at an idea and say, “How much can I make?” We’ll pass on an idea if we think there’s 25% or more downside.”
This is more specific in valuation:
“…Basically, private market value recognizes the difference between GAAP and intrinsic value, so we like using that. And the second would be free cash flow yield.
We like companies that produce solid, consistent cash flows, which typically makes them less reliant on capital markets for financing, and we think those types of companies exhibit more owner-oriented behavior.”
An example is illustrative:
“I’m happy to talk about one of the convert ideas to give you a little flavor for how we invest in converts. A good example of a convert we own is Palo Alto Networks (NYSE:PANW), which is a global cybersecurity company.
They’re the leader in network firewalls. The company a couple of years ago brought in a new CEO, Nikesh Arora from Google, and he’s been transitioning the company to more provide the full suite of security products.
As companies move to the cloud, it’s become necessary to transition their strategy a bit. They seem to be executing well, and they actually should be aided by the whole work-from-home trend as cybersecurity becomes even more of a priority.
The convert matures July 2023, and right now, it’s trading around $111 or $112. But we like the fact that the company has a rock-solid balance sheet, about $300 million of net cash on the balance sheet, and they produce over $1 billion of free cash flow per year.
It’s trading over 5% forward free cash flow yield. So by buying the convert here, we believe it offers pretty limited downside to par and decent participation in the upside. The convert feature is in the money at $266 per share versus the current price of the stock in the high $230s. Given that you have three years to maturity, the delta is right around .55.”
To get more details on this and many other examples, read the entire 3,846 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
David Nierengarten, Ph.D., is Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Equity Research at Wedbush Securities.
He mainly covers development-stage therapeutic companies. He began his career on the financial side of biotechnology at a venture capital firm that focused on early-stage therapeutic and medical device companies.
Additionally, prior to joining Wedbush, he worked in a clinical-stage, venture-backed biotechnology company, in business development and clinical trial operations. He received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from the University of California-Berkeley.
In this 3,444 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Dr. Nierengarten details his current biotech sector investment forecast.
“…There’s also been a resurgence in what I would call the next generation of cell therapies for cancer.
So moving beyond the initial approved autologous T cell, engineered T-cell therapies of Yescarta and Kymriah, and moving into allogeneic or more broadly applicable engineered cell technologies that could potentially treat a wider variety of cancers.
For example, Fate Therapeutics (NASDAQ:FATE) is working with pluripotent-derived natural killer cells — NK cells — in this area.
The other trend or noticeable events over the last few months are perhaps the little bit more scrutiny the FDA has applied to gene therapies, particularly ones where there are existing alternative therapies, such as the CRL — complete response letter — that was given to BioMarin (NASDAQ:BMRN) for Roctavian, their gene therapy for hemophilia.
That was a bit of a surprise to the industry generally. And I think probably speaks to a little bit more scrutiny specifically for diseases where there are existing therapies, and the FDA might want to have a bigger body of evidence for durable, lasting, meaningful clinical benefit for those kinds of therapies.”
Despite the greater FDA scrutiny for genetic therapies, Dr. Nierengarten sees potential in many biotech stocks:
“There are several throughout the space. First, on the genetic-medicine side, there are a couple of earlier stage, a couple of later stage, depending on investors’ appetites.
But one of the later-stage companies — it actually is going to be reporting data on September 9 — is AGTC (NASDAQ:AGTC), and they have a gene therapy for a rare retinal disease, X-linked retinitis pigmentosa, that should be progressing into a Phase III study by the end of the year.
It’s a pretty small market cap given the opportunity of several thousand patients with this rare form of disease that causes blindness in a relatively advanced stage of development.
Other genetic medicines, again, maybe more broadly applied, are some of the earlier-stage companies like Beam Therapeutics (NASDAQ:BEAM) that has a new gene-editing technology that they’re putting into the preclinical experiments right now.
And one that has a really broad potential: Generation Bio (NASDAQ:GBIO). That’s a recent IPO. And Generation Bio is really looking at eliminating a significant bottleneck in gene therapy, and that’s the virus sector.
So to deliver gene therapy, you need to genetically engineer a virus to deliver the genetic material to the cells. Generation Bio is looking to avoid that completely by packaging up the DNA and lipid nanoparticles, these little particles that they inject, and it gets into the cells, puts the genetic material in the cells to make a protein of interest that’s either defective in the patient or has other therapeutic value.
On the oncology side, a couple of names in the small-molecule-targeted therapies. One is Epizyme (NASDAQ:EPZM).
They have an approved drug actually. I think it’s a very good value for their approved drug, Tazverik. That’s approved in both a rare epithelioid sarcoma indication but more broadly or a larger indication of follicular lymphoma. They’re just launching that drug right now. And I think it has potential to outperform expectations.
And also, on the targeted side of things, Blueprint Medicines (NASDAQ:BPMC) just got their drug approved for RET fusion-positive lung cancers.”
Get the complete detail on these and other biotech stocks, exclusively in this 3,444 word interview with David Nierengarten, Ph.D., Managing Director and Head of Healthcare Equity Research at Wedbush Securities.
Dr. James Garner is Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of Kazia Therapeutics Limited. In this 3,500 word interview, found exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Dr. Garner explains the upside for investors in his company:
“Our lead drug is paxalisib, formerly known as GDC-0084. This drug is under development for multiple forms of brain cancer but with a primary focus on a disease called glioblastoma, which is the most common and the most aggressive form of brain cancer.
This was the disease that, for example, took the life of U.S. Senator John McCain, the Republican senator for Arizona, a year or two back.
Glioblastoma is a really difficult disease to treat. It affects about 12,500 Americans each year, and it really has one of the worst prognoses of any cancer out there. Life expectancy from diagnosis is typically between about 12 months and 15 months, and that really hasn’t improved this century.”
The therapy is currently being tested in the US:
“The unique feature about paxalisib is that it’s the only drug of its kind that is able to cross the blood-brain barrier. It’s the only drug that can get into the brain.
Ordinarily, the blood-brain barrier prevents most drugs and toxins from getting into the brain as a protective mechanism, but it does make it very hard treating brain disease, whether that be Parkinson’s disease, depression, brain cancer and so on. Paxalisib is able to cross the blood-brain barrier — it gets into the brain — and that gives it a unique advantage in terms of the treatment of this disease.
So unsurprisingly, we are looking at the drug in other forms of brain cancer as well. In addition to glioblastoma, we have a study going on in a rare childhood brain cancer called DIPG. Thankfully, this is not a common disease. It affects only about 400 or 500 kids a year in the United States, but it is a devastating disease for patients and for their families.
It typically affects kids between about 4 and 12 years of age. Life expectancy from diagnosis is about nine or 10 months. And there are no FDA-approved treatments. Really, all we have for kids with DIPG is palliative radiotherapy.
We’re doing a study with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, to see if our drug, paxalisib, is able to offer some benefit here in DIPG. We’re expecting to see data there, hopefully, by the end of this year. I think if we can make a difference there, it’d be very exciting news.”
Get the complete detail by reading the entire 3,500 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Michael Quaid was appointed CEO of Boomer Holdings, Inc. at its formation in August 2019. Earlier, he was the majority owner and Managing Director of Typhoon FX trading platforms. Previously, Mr. Quaid was Managing Partner at KCCO II Trading and was head of European derivatives for S.G. Warburg & Co. in London.
In this 2,859 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Quaid details his company’s prospects for investors.
“The company has two divisions: the Healthy Living Division and the PPE — personal protective equipment — Division. The Healthy Living Division features our doctor-formulated Boomer Botanics line. This line is actually an alternative to CBD.
It features all-natural ingredients, which are FDA-compliant. The products promote a strong immune system and can help with inflammatory issues, pain and anxiety.
We have co-branded these products with Tommy Bahama. Brandt Jobe, who is a professional golfer on the PGA Champions Tour, is our spokesman for the sports world.
The PPE Division was developed in the spring of 2020 in concert with our Medical Advisory Board. We have a multitude of offerings, but our flagship product is our Boomer Naturals’ reusable face mask.
Our face masks are WHO- and CDC-compliant. They have three layers of cotton-poly infused nanosilver technology. They’ve tested out at 99.99% anti-microbial. They come in six sizes — four adult sizes, two children sizes — and would be considered our flagship product.”
The Tommy Bahama botanical treatment has seen early success:
“And I will tell you that most people that try those Botanics products fall in love with them. We were at the PGA Merchandise Show in January, and we handed out a lot of our pain roll-ons, thousands of them.
And over the next two or three days after we handed them out, people just kept coming back saying, “You may have just changed my life. This gave me instant relief, and I’ve never had anything else like it.” We’ve heard that from so many people. And to get the feedback from our distribution networks in the chiropractic world, it’s something that once people try it, they like it, and they’ll keep using it.”
The company is also selling and distributing PPE:
“…the New York City Department of Veteran Services, we were able to get them 40,000 masks, also a partnership with Partnership With Native Americans, or PWNA, Boys and Girls Clubs in several cities and several schools that were truly in need of these face masks.
A lot of the school systems set up guidelines and didn’t come through with the funding. And so where there was a need and we could help out, we did so. We’re thrilled to do that. We continue to do it.”
Get the compete detail on this newly public company by reading the entire 2,859 word interview, only in the Wall Street Transcript.
Raj Mehra, Ph.D., is the Chairman and CEO of Seelos Therapeutics, Inc.
Prior to founding Seelos, Dr. Mehra spent nine years at Auriga USA, LLC as a managing director focused on private and public equity investments in global health care companies. Prior to Auriga, Dr. Mehra was the sector head for health care equity investments at Bennett Lawrence Management, LLC in New York. He also founded and managed a long/short equity hedge fund at Weiss, Peck & Greer LLC.
In this 2,858 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Dr. Mehra details the stage of his company’s drug developments:
“Our lead program, SLS-002, which is an intranasal ketamine program that’s focused on acute suicide ideation behavior in major depression, which translates to patients who have major depression and also are imminently suicidal, which means they have a suicide plan to implement and coupled behavior that will lead to a successful suicide.
Currently, there are no drug therapeutics that have been approved in the U.S., or worldwide for that matter.
And currently, the number of patients who are showing up in the emergency room that are imminently suicidal is a staggering number, over a million people. And with no approved therapy, this is a high unmet need, and that’s where our lead program is focused on.
And then, we have another program that’s also ready for a potentially pivotal study, SLS-005, which is focused on ALS, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
This disease is also a fatal neurodegenerative disease, which means, for most of the patients, the median survival is three years from the time they are diagnosed with the disease. And in the last 30 years, only one drug was approved four years ago from a small Japanese study, and that drug is used not very widely, and as a result, almost 49,000 patients that are prevalent in the U.S. alone for ALS are in the need of an effective therapy, so we are focused on that as well.”
Dr. Mehra believes that his company’s products will be unaffected by political developments:
“Depending on the election outcome, it is expected that if the Republicans win, then things will continue on as they are, which is generally very positive for the industry. And from the Democrat side, they have started to formulate their policies, which are still not very clear, but the last week they started to formulate the policy that they don’t intend to make any drastic changes in drug pricing.”
Get the complete 2,858 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, with all the details on these exciting new drugs from Dr. Mehra’s company.
Vincent Angotti is the CEO and a member of the board of directors at AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Earlier, he was CEO of XenoPort, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of treatments for neuropathic pain and other neurological disorders.
Prior to that, Mr. Angotti was Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Reliant Pharmaceuticals. He is a graduate of Cornell University and received an MBA, with honors, from Columbia University.
In this 3,776 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Angotti delivers the upside rationale for his company to investors.
“The other side of the coin are drugs everyone’s heard of with not good praise: IV fentanyl and, to a lesser degree, IV sufentanil. The challenge with these drugs is that they come very fast in onset of action, in a matter of minutes. But as fast as they come on is as fast as they come off in their analgesic effects. The patient starts suffering from pain again. They have to continuously be re-dosed.”
AcelRx has developed an effective alternative:
“What Dr. Palmer did was she selected the molecule sufentanil for sublingual administration because of the reasons I mentioned before, from being highly lipophilic, non-ionized, allowing for transmucosal uptake, under the tongue, to a safety profile due to the very high therapeutic index. And number three, and most importantly, is this pharmacokinetic profile, what’s got a fast onset of analgesia under the tongue of about 15 minutes. It solves the morphine issue and has a nice duration of analgesic effect with just one dose over three to four hours, solving the issues with IV fentanyl and sufentanil, regarding the fast offset.
And finally, because it’s just one dose and because of the makeup of the drug and how it’s delivered under the tongue, it has a low level of medication in the blood, while it keeps you in the analgesic area, it typically doesn’t put you into the safety threshold of respiratory depression. It’s this beautiful triangle: There is fast onset, long duration, three to four hours, but safety, with a blunted blood concentration that doesn’t put patients typically into the respiratory depression zone.”
Get the complete investment thesis and all the details by reading the entire 3,776 word interview with Vincent Angotti, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Albert Mitrani has been Chief Operating Officer, President and board member at Organicell Regenerative Medicine, Inc. since April 2018, and he also is the Chairman of the board, Chief Executive Officer, Secretary and Treasurer at Organicell Regenerative Medicine, Inc. — alternate name Biotech Products since June 24, 2011.
Mr. Mitrani formerly was the Chief Executive Officer, President and Director of Analytical Stem Cell Corp. from April 2014 to May 2015. From February 2012 to March 2014, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Americell Trinidad and the President of ASCAAC LLC — American Stem Cell — from March 2011 to January 2013. Mr. Mitrani was the Chief Executive Officer of American Cellular Center in Quito Ecuador from 2009 through 2012.
In this 2,511 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Mitrani explains why investors should look at buying stock in his publicly traded company.
“For several years, we have been doing a lot of research in various areas, specifically around lung diseases, and have collected data, more specifically around lung reparation.
When COVID hit, we came to the realization that through all of our work and expertise around regenerative therapeutics for the lungs, that there could be a potential opportunity for us to make a big difference in the treatment of this virus, particularly for patients with more severe lung injury and illness.”
This particular treatment developed from some core stem cell therapy applications.
“And with this knowledge of stem cells, we transitioned out of autologous stem cells and began searching for a regenerative therapy that would be more consistent. Particularly, something that we would be able to commercialize with reproducible and consistent effects.
Autologous stem cell therapies utilized autologous stem cells derived from the patient’s own blood. When you isolate these cells, the stem cell quality varies from patient to patient. The health of the stem cell population is largely dependent upon the patient’s health status and underlying conditions.
In our search for a better therapeutic source of cells for regenerative therapies, we ultimately focused on perinatal tissue…
However, one component of paracrine factors that we found to be most promising for regenerative therapies were cell-secreted nanoparticles called “exosomes” and extracellular vesicles.
This type of therapy no longer requires the use of stem cells or cells. Our ability to identify and isolate these perinatal-derived exosomes is what really changed the direction of our company.”
Get all the details on this potentially life changing drug discovery by reading the entire 2,511 word interview with Mr. Mitrani, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Hartmut J. Ehrlich, M.D., is Chief Executive Officer of Abivax. He is a physician with 30 years of experience in academia and in the biopharmaceutical industry. For 20 years, he worked on product development at Baxter and Sandoz — now Novartis. Before joining Abivax, as Head of Global R&D, he successfully built and advanced Baxter BioScience’s R&D portfolio with over 50 programs in preclinical and clinical development.
He drove the regulatory approval of key biologics in the specialty areas of hemophilia, thrombosis, immunology, neurology, oncology, biosurgery and vaccines, thereby bringing novel therapies to patients with substantial medical needs.
He also has authored or co-authored over 120 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. In 2011, Dr. Ehrlich was named “Professor” by the Austrian President and the Austrian Minister for Science and Research, and he received the title of “Adjunct Professor” at the Danube University Krems, Lower Austria in 2013.
Philippe Pouletty, M.D., is Chairman of the board at Abivax. He is also Managing Partner of Truffle Capital. He is a pioneer in the biotechnology and medical devices sector.
As an entrepreneur, he founded/co-founded among others: Carmat, Deinove, Pharnext, Vexim — Truffle portfolio companies.
As an inventor, Dr. Pouletty has filed 32 patents, one of which is the second-highest revenue generator in life sciences for Stanford University, earning him membership in Stanford’s Invention Hall of Fame in 2012.
Dr. Pouletty was Chairman of France Biotech from 2001 to 2009 and has held the title of Honorary Chairman since 2009.
In this 2,287 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, these two scientists discuss the upside for investors in their current publicly traded company.
“Abivax was founded by Truffle Capital, my fund in Paris, in 2013 by merging three of our biotech companies. One of the companies was working on the platform technology coming from CNRS — the French National Centre for Scientific Research — that led to ABX464, which is the company’s lead molecule tested in ulcerative colitis and other clinical trials.
A second biotech company, which was formed from a technology licensed from Scripps Research in California, has led to the current Phase I/II trial in the U.S. of ABX196 for hepato carcinoma.
So we like projects coming from great science in academia, where we start the companies not from scratch but from I.P., and then we continue to work with the inventors who stay in academia.”
Their drug discovery has applications to the treatment of the COVID 19 coronavirus:
“This is related to the product characteristics of ABX464, a molecule that was initially developed for patients with HIV as an antiviral. During the uncovering of the mechanism of action, we realized that ABX464 was a very potent anti-inflammatory drug.
It is now in a Phase IIb study in ulcerative colitis. And it will be in a Phase IIb/III study in patients with Crohn’s disease within the next six months.
When COVID came up, and based on the initial antiviral activity against HIV and the anti-inflammatory properties, we tested the molecule in the most reputable lab in France, in Lyon, for its ability to actually inhibit the replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
We saw — and Remdesivir was in these experiments as well — that the inhibition of replication of the virus between Remdesivir and ABX464 was comparable. We had already decided to go into a COVID-19 clinical trial, but the antiviral activity, of course, was the icing on the cake.”
Get all the details on this great drug discovery biotech company by reading the entire 2,287 word interview with Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Pouletty, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
Robert Cobuzzi is the new CEO at Diffusion Pharmaceuticals Inc. He was a company director since January 2020. He is currently adviser to the Mitochondrial Disease Frontier Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Chairman of Sunstone Life Science Venture’s Business Development Board. From 2005 until 2018, he worked in senior roles at Endo International Plc, most recently as President, Endo Ventures Limited in Dublin, Ireland.
Dr. Cobuzzi was a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals, Health/Science Products and Services, and was a board member for two development-stage medical device companies.
He received an A.B. degree in biochemistry and art history from Colby College as well as a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biochemistry from Loyola University Chicago.
In this 3,168 word interview, exclusive to the Wall Street Transcript, Dr. Cobuzzi explains the sustainable competitive advantage of his public biotech company.
“We are looking at ways to improve the oxygenation of tissue and organs. The animal studies and the initial human studies have provided interesting and compelling data while showing an excellent safety profile.
No issues with tolerability have occurred through the clinical experiences to date. Further, we have been able to identify evidence of efficacy.
And now, amidst this horrible COVID pandemic, we have the ability to test patients and hopefully come up with a treatment that can address this issue of multi-organ failure related to a lack of oxygen becoming available because of lung damage associated with the disease.”
“The current plan is to do a large multinational trial in both Europe and the U.S. to make sure that we can accrue patients at a sufficiently rapid rate and yet have all the adequate procedures in place from a medical standpoint to ensure consistent treatment amongst all the patients and ensure that we obtain quality data.
We must file for regulatory approval to conduct such a bilateral trial in both the U.S. and Europe.
We envision our current study will give us a topline data readout sometime in the mid-late fourth quarter of this year — clinical studies being what they are — and that we would hopefully be able to get the next study going sometime in the early part of 2021.”
Get the complete picture and the underlying science to this discovery by reading the entire 3,168 word interview with Robert Cobuzzi, only in the Wall Street Transcript.
Christopher Zook is the Founder, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of CAZ Investments. With nearly 30 years of experience investing in both traditional and alternative asset classes, he is a regular contributor to major media outlets, including CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg. Mr. Zook is actively involved in public policy and frequently serves as a resource to state and local officials.
Most recently, Governor Greg Abbott appointed Mr. Zook as Chair of the investments committee for the State of Texas Pension Review Board after he helped find a solution to Houston’s pension crisis and spearheaded efforts that resulted in the city’s most sweeping public pension reform of the last 40 years.
In this 3,854 word interview, exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript, Mr. Zook details his investing strategy and some of his top picks.
“Because of our buying power and vast ecosystem, it is not uncommon for us to make $100 million-plus commitments into investments if they align well with our core themes. There are not many families, and frankly, not many institutions, that can invest $100 million-plus into one fund or one specific company.
We have the ability to do that because we are aggregating buying power from so many different sources and so many different pools of capital, which means we get access and we see things that may not otherwise be available.
The second part is that some investments have very high minimums, and those minimums can make it prohibitive for families who would need to invest $25 million or $50 million at a time, which may be outside of their range of comfort. Our ecosystem and buying power provide us the ability to make those investments.
Additionally, because we are a single source of potentially very large investment dollars, and we can move much faster than the typical investor might be able to, we often receive preferential rights, protections or, in many cases, co-investment opportunities that would not be available to the average fund investor.”
This has lead to an interesting process:
“Every single recession has a playbook that you can utilize to navigate through the turmoil. The causes of each recession are always different and unpredictable, and I certainly do not know anyone that was forecasting that this recession would be caused by a virus, but there is almost always a playbook that can be utilized to maximize the opportunity set from a recession.
Each recession has its own unique characteristics, but they generally follow a somewhat predictable pattern.
In this particular situation, we are following that playbook but recognize that things are likely to happen slower because of all the stimulus.
Therefore, we are putting capital in place over the next six to nine months that will be ready to buy those companies that are truly great businesses with troubled balance sheets, restructure them and then, as the economy recovers over the next three to five years, hopefully sell them at enormous increases in value.
We have a great partner that we are looking forward to announcing sometime in the next couple of months to do just that.”
