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Barrons INSIDE SCOOP A Billionaire’s Latest Biotech Bet Bob Duggan has persevered before and realized a $3.5 billion payoff. Is he right about Achaogen? By Ed Lin April 4, 2018 1:00 p.m. ET Billionaire Bob Duggan never finished college, but according to his website, “much of his formal training was through communications and business programs offered by Scientology.” Duggan says on his site that he became an investor by “applying the lessons he learned from the published works of L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, to real life.” He took a course with UCSB’s Herbert C. Kay, whom he considers “a mentor.” Duggan has given back to those two sources of inspiration. Bloomberg described him in 2013 as the “biggest donor” to Scientology, and UCSB notes that he been a trustee since 1989. Duggan didn’t respond to requests for comment made by phone and email. Duggan’s initial forays were marked with humility and success. He invested in embroidery kits and cookies (he personally came up with a “soft and gooey” chocolate-chip cookie) in the 1970s and sold them both. Then came computing, networking, and robotic surgery. The year 2004 found Duggan buying shares of struggling cancer researcher Pharmacyclics. He had personal knowledge of tumors because a son died from brain cancer, according to Forbes. ADVERTISEMENT Duggan became the company’s CEO in September 2008 when its fortunes were far from assured. Duggan hadn’t headed a biotech before, and Pharmacyclics had lost $340 million since 1991. He managed to steer the company forward, and in 2015, AbbVie (ticker: ABBV) agreed to buy it for $21 billion, as our colleagues at The Wall Street Journal reported. Duggan’s Pharmacyclics stock was worth $3.5 billion. Investment-wise, Duggan kept his pulse on the market in 2017 by buying shares of Pulse Biosciences (PLSE), according to regulatory filings. Pulse, a medical technology company, named him chairman in November. Duggan is the largest shareholder in the company, with 5.9 million Pulse shares—a 35% stake, according to S&P Capital IQ. A Barron’s review of Securities and Exchange Commission documentation show that Duggan also bought shares of Achaogen (AKAO) last year. At the end of the end of the first quarter of 2017, Duggan disclosed that during the period he paid $41.1 million for 2.04 million shares of the company, which is researching antibacterial treatments against multidrug-resistant, gram-negative infections. A filing made March 28, 2017, indicated that he might wield his 5.8% stake as an activist investor. Duggan had paid as much as $25.18 per Achaogen share. ADVERTISEMENT Unfortunately, Achaogen shares slid after the first quarter, ending 2017 with a 18% drop. Duggan said the shares were undervalued in March, so it wasn’t surprising tha

We won't have to wait eight months for no news. After NDA is submitted we'll hear back in 2 months. Also Q3 they stated which path they will take going forward. Plenty of catalysts

Not sure the pessimism Catscan. If things are set back by a month or two, what's the relevance? The science and data has not changed. An NDA is a ton of paperwork and they just want to make sure all the I's are dotted and T's are crossed. It's a formality and a massive one at that.

Interesting note and makes sense. I wonder if folks would wanna continue being short as is highly probable that FDA will have no issue with iclaprim when NDA is submitted and possible rerate based on that. Seems like picking up pence in front of a bulldozer for the shorts.

Paratek just submitted their NDA. We'll likely be submitting next month (or possibly before). Stock is basically flat. It'll be interesting to see if they get a bump if NDA is accepted. They are like the canary in the coalmine for MTFB. I'm expecting a positive response for MTFB and PRTK but only time will tell.

It could be getting the "all clear" from the FDA regarding the NDA i.e. no complete response letter back. I like to think that will be the rerate event and not the actual approval of Iclamprim assuming it is approved.

Yea, June is just a another month. Amp is just buying more time in hope of the rerate by then. The share sale will still hangover the stock but by then they are anticipating the run up will have happened.

Mtfb is expecting to file their NDA in the first quarter. Let's say they get it in by February. The FDA generally will get back within two months saying things are fine and they will then approve or not approve in 6 months. If there are issues they will send back a complete response letter saying what changes need to be met in order to submit again. If all goes well and no complete response letter is issued, by May or June (depending on when NDA is submitted) this could be on it's way to being reviewed for the final FDA decision. Perhaps AMP met with their creditors and told them if no complete response letter is issued the stock could then rerate by May/June. In other words a successful submission of the NDA will be the rerate and the actual FDA approval (if approved) will be the sell the news event. We'll see

Once they submit the NDA and if they get an "all ok" from the FDA with no complete response letter back that could be the rerate as FDA approval would then be perhaps a "sell the news" event.

Will continue to trade down until Amp situation is straightened out. We dont yet know if they will find an off market transaction for their stake, sell on the open market, or how much they will end up selling. The market just knows that Amp is a distressed seller and when that has been announced you cannot expect the share price to rise. If u can look out over the next few months it could be a lot brighter.

http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/mtfb/short-interest The November figures will be interesting to see.

Greetings Ivy, thanks for your continued insight into MTFB. I read through the piece about HFL and perhaps we will never know if MTFB is being gamed in a similar way but the manner in which it trades makes me think manipulation is happening on some level but not necessarily from shorting. As of october 31st, the U.S. listed version saw its short interest drop to 2.9k shares from 18.5k on october 13th. It'll be interesting to see the most recent figures for November. Unless we see a big spike up in the percentage of shorts, something else is happening given the trading pattern of the past few weeks.