TapImmune Inc. (OTCMKTS:TPIV) Stirred Up by the Media
Apparently, TapImmune Inc. (OTCMKTS:TPIV) has drawn the attention of quite a lot of websites and other media outlets. More than a few articles have been published over the last few months and there have also been some interviews with Glynn Wilson, the company CEO.
People are interested in TPIV‘s business and this, in turn, means that a lot more eyes are now focused on the stock. Unfortunately, the performance is hardly stellar. In fact it’s quite disappointing.
Between September 11 and October 16, for example, TPIV lost more than 60% of its market cap when it fell from just over $1 per share to less than $0.40. It would appear that the $0.40 mark is still putting up a fight. Although the ticker broke through it at the beginning of the week, it slipped by around 5% on Wednesday and it’s currently sitting at $0.39. Nevertheless, many people probably believe that the increasing volumes will manage to stabilize the performance a little bit. If that is to happen, however, TPIV will need to show us something more than news coverage. Thankfully, things seem to be moving in that aspect as well.
On November 18, the company announced that, in collaboration with The Vaccine & Gene Institute of Florida, they will be conducting the Phase II human trials for the treatment of breast and ovarian cancer.
Hopefully, the trials will go without a hitch and hopefully, TPIV will soon start generating revenues. If they don’t, the continuing losses could soon start to put quite a lot of pressure on the balance sheet. The latest 10-Q, by the way, suggests that this process has already begun. On September 30, the company had an accumulated deficit of around $86 million and:
- $613 thousand in cash
- $643 thousand in total assets
- $1.3 million in current liabilities
- a quarterly net loss of around $1.5 million
On the bright side, during the first nine months of the year, TPIV managed to eliminate a large portion of the current liabilities. Unfortunately, this has led to another problem – dilution.
Around $4.25 million worth of principal and accrued interest was converted into 14,386,000 shares of common stock. When you check out the O/S count, you’ll see just how much pressure this has put on TPIV.
The company effectuated a reverse split in February and immediately after it, the number of issued and outstanding shares stood at around 1.4 million. On November 17, it was sitting at a little over 19.6 million.
That’s not the only problem. As you might have calculated already, the aforementioned 14,368,000 shares were issued at an average conversion rate of just $0.29 per share. This was quite a bargain back when the stock was sitting comfortably above the $1 per share mark, but even though it is now way below these levels, there’s still room for a hefty profit.
It should be noted that according to the latest 10-Q, there wasn’t any convertible debt left at the end of Q3 and we certainly hope that TPIV will manage to keep things that way. More dilution could prove to be absolutely catastrophic.
