Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (OTCBB:COCP) Closes In On $0.50
At the very start of the year Biozone Pharmaceuticals Inc (OTCBB:BZNE) sold the entirety of its operational assets to MusclePharm Corp. (OTCMKTS:MSLP) for a total of 1.2 million common shares. What was left was a shell that immediately performed a reverse merger with the private company Cocrystal Discovery, Inc and after a name and ticker change Cocrystal Pharma, Inc. (OTCBB:COCP) was formed.
The new company is focused on the development of new antiviral therapeutics geared mainly towards Hepatitis C and influenza. In order to gather the necessary funds for the arduous process of drug development COCP performed a private placement and sold 5.5 million shares and 5.5 million warrants with an exercise price of 50 cents for total proceeds of $2.75 million. In June they boosted their balance sheet even more by selling half of the MSLP shares at 9 dollars each. So let’s see what the financials of the company looked like as of June 30:
• $4 million cash
• $10 million total current assets
• $6.9 million total current liabilities
• ZERO revenues
• $1.38 million loss from operations
As a whole the numbers are quite encouraging. The cash reserves are adequate and will keep the company going for now. Not to mention that at the start of the month they sold another 250 thousand MSLP shares for $2.5 million.
COCP‘s appeal is further increased by the fact that its biggest shareholder is none other than Dr. Philip Frost, the Chairman of Teva (NYSE:TEVA) and CEO of OPKO Health, Inc (NYSE:OPK). Both companies have made investments in Cocrystal. According to the Schedule 13D form filed back in August Dr. Frost owns around 48% of the company.
Despite the positive factors the chart performance of the stock has been far from stellar. In fact it dropped from around 60 cents to a low of $0.25 in just 4 months. In August it managed to recover some ground but still remained at around 40 cents. During the last five session things have once again been heating up though. On Wednesday COCP closed at $0.44. Thanks to a PR issued yesterday the positive momentum behind the stock got even stronger resulting in nearly 1.3 million traded shares, amount that is more than 5 times higher than the average for the company. At the end of the trading day the stock had gained 9% and was sitting at $0.48.
The PR that sparked the enthusiastic buying talked about a new screening technology for the Ebola virus. Despite being somewhat of a fluff press article any mention of the deadly virus attracts the attention of the market. But how long will the current excitement around the stock last?
Well, COCP has already made a considerable surge up the chart and investors might become tempted to lock in their profits. The company is planning to submit the regulatory filings to initiate clinical trials for the hepatitis drug in early 2015 while the filings for the influenza drug are scheduled for December, 2015. Without fresh news the stock could once more stagnate.
