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Comment by LeanderK | Hacker News Reader

what am I missing? Isn't this good news (the positive phase 2 results)?

Yes, but the CEO was trying to take those profits for herself by biding to take the company private, which the Board of Directors refused to put up with

Phase 2 is not a slam dunk. Much more work remains, and under the guidance of a CEO who has zero drug development experience and a track record of management incompetence:

- lying about growth

- pushing out the cofounder

- never making a profit

- hack that went undiscovered for months

About the only area she's had success is raising money and that's in large part thanks to being a member of the Silicon Valley elite.

you left out "ignored a letter from the FDA telling them to shut down"

Could the hack have been part of the plan all along to depress the share price to make for a cheap buy-out?

Mathematically, the chance of a drug going from phase 2 to phase 3 is roughly 30%

This can be modeled with a binomial distribution as 1-probability of both failing. That comes out to 1-(.7^2) which is 51% of at least one drug reaching phase 3.

There is literally a coin flip chance the company will reach the stage where there is another coin flip it will be worth billions (I believe ~50% of phase 3 drugs go to market), but thanks to the messaging of the CEO, right now it seems like there is a near 0% chance investors (which include former company employees) would benefit from this.

The board is making it clear that they don't think the CEO/largest shareholder is making good on their duty (as CEO) to the other shareholders.

"Good luck ......" or so.

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