Suffice it to say that his associations with one Miami area serial securities "pumper and dumper" / fraudster Barry Honig, now banned by the SEC and FINRA from working in the securities industry, as well as this settled action. . . should raise eyebrows. [Opko's latest quarter was. . . a train-wreck.]
But this morning, this largely flailing diagnostics and R&D med-tech company has popped 25% (another "pump"?), because Dr. Frost's been able to ink a deal to have Merck license an EBV vaccine candidate, should it make it through trials. Merck is only putting in $50 million upfront, but Team Frost is hyping the remote possibility of over a billion in revenue, if the whole thing goes perfectly.
For now at least, I will assume that Rahway has done solid due diligence on the science here -- and that the vaccine looks promising perhaps in spite of this company's past, since it was acquired by Opko in a deal from Sanofi. [But Rob Davis better know who he's dealing with, as it is unusual for a major to allow a fly-by-night to draft off of its good name. That's all I'll say for now.] To be sure, we will keep an eye on it. Here's the latest, off the wires:
. . .Opko will receive an upfront payment of $50 million and is eligible for milestone payments of up to $872.5 million, plus royalties on global sales.
There is currently no vaccine for the Epstein-Barr virus, which is the leading cause of mononucleosis, or mono, commonly called the "kissing disease". . . .
To be fair, Frost has also leveraged a relationship with Pfizer, in the last two years. But, were I a skeptic, I might start looking to see who all bought into Opko after the trashy quarterly results two weeks ago -- and who stands to make "dump" style profits on this hyped announcement, there. At this point, in my experienced opinion, the billion dollars is a pure puffery claim. Damn.
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