Inducement Grants

[lacour_98]

After hours PR on Inducement Grants, some 2.9MM shares at a strike price of $3.90. A signal of FDA approval of IMET for Low-Risk MDS?

[kmall]

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... e-5635-c-4

[Ryan]

After hours PR on Inducement Grants, some 2.9MM shares at a strike price of $3.90. A signal of FDA approval of IMET for Low-Risk MDS?

Wow, it’s a huge # of shares. They either hired a very senior Executive, or granted inducements to their entire sales force at once, perhaps at the end of the training period for those who made it through.

The PR is nebulous about the # of employees for this (huge) traunch of shares.

[kmall]

Ryan - I believe your assumption on the sales force and perhaps a few additional recent hires being the recipients of this latest round of inducement grants is on target. 2.9M is a tremendous sum for even two or three executives, which I would think would also merit a PR from the company. I'm not saying that this is the case, but many biotechs will award inducement grants in a more progressive fashion before a BO negotiation is finalized. One example which comes to mind is the acquisition of Forty-Seven Biotech by Gilead in 2020 for $4.9B. Inducement grants from the summer of 2019 leading up to the eventual BO several months later were on a monthly and bi-weekly basis. -Kmall

[LWS]

Dr. Feller told us (shareholders meeting, May 9th) that Geron was in the process of increasing its staff from 162 to between 250 and 300. These inducements would be consistent with that goal. I cannot imagine this kind of rapid expansion, unless they were sure that the 12 to 2 ODAC recommendation was already accepted by FDA. Could Dr. Scarlett and Dr. Feller already know? Remember, CDER had listed Imetelstat as one of the 10 most important new medicines for 2024.

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Post by kmall » Fri May 17, 2024 4:40 pm

Ryan - I believe your assumption on the sales force and perhaps a few additional recent hires being the recipients of this latest round of inducement grants is on target. 2.9M is a tremendous sum for even two or three executives, which I would think would also merit a PR from the company.
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The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) is a division of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that regulates over-the-counter and prescription drugs, including biological therapeutics and generic drugs . CDER evaluates new drugs before they can be sold. CDER is the lead Center for regulation of human drugs that are regulated by FDA under the authority of the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act. Biological products are covered by the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.