Vascular Biogenics Ltd. (NASDAQ:VBLT)

As my focus shifts to shorting stocks, I've begun entering more red thumbs on low quality bios in which I don't particularly expect short-term declines. The reason is that I don't have time to watch them all and I don't want to miss their eventual demise. I'm not worried about short-term effects on my CAPS score if they double or triple, because nobody has cared about CAPS scores for years except the top 3 players. If I choose my stocks well, ultimately most of them will become wins eventually. The best part is that if one of my picks becomes a huge loser, it's a good ongoing reminder to keep my eye on it for a possible short.

Vascular Biogenics has all sorts of strikes against it. For one, it's an Israeli biotech company. I like Israel just fine, but there's definitely something wrong with the way they regulate biotech companies over there. Some of the Israeli companies I despise are Alcobra and Pluristem. I'm also a bagholder on others which I tried playing for a scam bounce, like BioLineRx and Brainstorm. These companies just don't seem designed to develop real drugs. As I delineated in detail on CAPS last September, the results of the phase II trial of VB-111 for GBM made absolutely no sense when compared to the trial protocol on clinicaltrials.gov. The company ignored the email I sent them requesting clarification. I successfully shorted the stock but left the lion's share of gains on the table.

The current story for Vascular Biogenics is the phase III GLOBE trial of VB-111 + Avastin vs Avastin alone for recurrent GBM, which is proceeding under an SPA. Interim data is expected in H1 2017. Recurrent GBM has been a short-term gold mine and a long term graveyard for companies like Northwest, Immunocellular, Agenus, and Peregrine. The company will also present preliminary OS data from an ongoing phase II trial of VB-111 for recurrent platinum-resistant Mullerian cancer at ASCO next week. They had 33M in cash at the end of March and burn 3-5M per quarter, not much for a partnerless company with a legitimate phase III trial in progress. I'm hoping that management will remain true to form and spin dubious ASCO data into a price spike that will fuel another dilutive financing for them and another profitable short for me.