I haven’t made any comments in the month since Vaxgen released the results of their AIDSVAX study. To some degree, the silence came out of sadness, for the people’s lives this vaccine would have changed and for my own financial results. I sold out my shares at $5.10, waiting for a short cover bounce that never came, but fortunately above the $2.70 low.
Predictably, the lawyers are out in force and looking for any blood they can suck. If you check the Yahoo! Finance news page for VXGN, the last eight listings are all about announcing lawsuits against the company. Not to worry, all the big names are included. Inevitably they’ll get consolidated into one action but I suppose the firms are just jockeying now to ensure as much of the fees as can be had.
I haven’t really decided yet, or looked into it, but I may yet find it necessary, if distasteful, to sign on to one of these suits. One question that all the plaintiffs need to consider is how much pie there is to be had in the event of a victory. According to company statements, Vaxgen had about $18 million cash (and equivalents) on hand on 12/31/02–but they’ve been burning around $8-10 million per quarter and even with the end of the initial vaccine trials and new revenue from Smallpox and Anthrax work, I doubt they’ll turn profitable anytime soon. Wonder what other deep pockets the lawyers hope to tap.
BillSaysThis 