Post by dnr08 on Aug 4, 2021 0:14:41 GMT
So, there were a couple interesting posts on Wild Bill's Discord server which piqued my curiosity. So I started to dig a little. First I saw this one line comment last night:
"There's decent connection between GeneDx and BNGO." Wondering if the comment was referring to Bingo games in Miami, or a public equity stock symbol, I logged onto my Bloomberg to see what I could find out. Lo and behold, BNGO is Bionano Genomics. Perhaps some here know it, but I did not. What history I could discern indicated the humble origins of the company to go back 10 years. The first Corporate Action that I could find was: "A consortium led by KLA Corp acquired a minority stake in Bionano Genomics Inc. The transaction was completed on 3/17/11." As far as I could tell, the company was not yet public. Then two and a half years later, this: "A consortium led by Gund Investment Corp acquired a minority stake in Bionano Genomics Inc. The transaction was completed on 10/2/13." Then, a year later: "A consortium led by Legend Capital and Novartis Venture Fund acquired a minority stake in BioNano Genomics Inc. The transaction was completed on 11/20/14." The "transaction values" for these three events were $23.3 million, $10 million, and $53 million, cash, respectively. Mind you, I have no idea how accurate these details are, but I'm fairly certain that the general info is correct. Then a 4 year hiatus, followed by a split, a listing in Berlin, then 2 more (reverse) splits. Finally, on 8/28/2018, the company was brought public by Roth Capital, selling 23 million+ shares at $6.125. The deal was "launched" fully 5 weeks earlier. I'm no expert in the nuances of IPOs, but that seems like a rather long period for a company to need to be marketed in order to line up enough investor interest to clear the market. Since then, Oppenheimer has underwitten 4 secondary offerings:
10/21/19 10.01 million shares at $0.85
4/2/20 16.9 million shares at $0.32
1/8/21 33.37 million shares at $3.05
then, just 12 days later, on 1/20/21 38.33 million shares at $6.00,
So, the stock went from an IPO price of $6.125 in August 2018, to $0.25 on 4/3/20, which was the day after that 16.9 million share secondary at $0.32. And over the ensuing 15 or so months, this phoenix climbed 12 fold, to $3.5, then basically doubled in 12 days (a 24 fold increase off the low.....how's THAT for a multiple of a TENBAGGER?), raising money like a banshee along the way. The stock hit $15.69 on 2/19/21, and is now, today....of course...back to...~$6.00 ($5.92 close). While I can't make the share count math work adding up all the offerings, the 10-K's show the outstanding share counts to have increased from 10 million in 2018, to 37 million in 2019, to ~279 million as of May 2021. This CEO would give Frosty a run for his money in the Diluter of the Decade Awards.
Now, even at the "depressed" price of $5.92, an Opkonian drop of 62.26% from the February high, even at this price, this company of very odd beginnings and dubious cap structure machinations sports a $1.65 Billion market cap. What are the revenues you ask? Well let's see: $8.5 million in 2020, a PROJECTED doubling to $16.1 million this year, and even greater heights for next year, $28 million, according to the tarot card readers. Profits? Oh, sorry...they're due to bleed about $50 million this year, and about $55 mill next year. So let's see, no net income, and a market cap equal to 100x this year's revenues, IF they hit the analyst "estimates." Who are those analysts? Well there's BTIG (remember, we obliged them in a chat during COVID, then they ghosted us) with a buy and a $10 PT; there's Maxim (a bucket shop, but the analyst is a Ph.D.) with the same PT, then there's our old buddy Kevin DeGeeter, formerly our Ladenburg coverage until he left for greener pastures, and more piles of green comp no doubt, at Oppenheimer (the aforementioned huckster, er, underwriter). DeGeeter has them at outperform, with a $14 target, no doubt reflecting the great underlying fundamentals and not the investment banking fees Oppy has collected over the past year. Finally, there's our new pal, Jeff Cohen, our new coverage (supposedly) at Ladenburg, who comes in with a $12 PT.
So here's a company with a checkered past, a bloated cap structure (I haven't even mentioned the warrants), huge losses, barely any revenue, and has a market cap 67% of Opko's. Makes perfect sense right? But here's where it gets even more interesting. The post on Discord following the one that started me down this rabbit hole led me to this inter web page:
www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/06/07/2242677/0/en/Bionano-Genomics-Appoints-Jason-Priar-Former-GeneDx-Sema4-and-PerkinElmer-Genomics-Sales-Leader-as-its-Chief-Commercial-Officer.html
Bionano Genomics Appoints Jason Priar, Former GeneDx, Sema4 and PerkinElmer Genomics Sales Leader, as its Chief Commercial Officer
June 07, 2021 08:00 ET | Source: Bionano Genomics
SAN DIEGO, June 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bionano Genomics, Inc. (Nasdaq: BNGO) announced today that Jason Priar has joined the company as its Chief Commercial Officer. Jason is a seasoned sales leader with experience scaling businesses from early stage to hundreds of millions in revenue. He has a deep understanding of how to penetrate clinical and research markets including genetic diseases and cancer. For Bionano, he will lead the commercial teams across the platform and services businesses to drive sales and market access with third party payors.
“We are thrilled to welcome Jason to Bionano. We believe he has the experience in scaling revenues and obtaining market access from third party payers that we need to accelerate global adoption of optical genome mapping (OGM) with our Saphyr® system and drive Lineagen’s business of providing diagnostic services in pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders,” commented Erik Holmlin, PhD, CEO of Bionano Genomics. “Jason’s intimate familiarity with the needs of traditional cytogenomics laboratories performing genome analysis in cancer and genetic diseases, combined with his understanding of needs of the physicians and pharmaceutical partners who apply the data, is among the best I have encountered in the industry. I believe adding Jason to an already stellar team can have a profound impact on Bionano.”
Jason’s experience includes sales in genetic diseases and cancer testing as well as pharmaceutical sales. After time with Forest Laboratories as a pharmaceutical detailer, he was selected for sales leadership positions at GeneDx, Sema4 and PerkinElmer Genomics with responsibilities covering sales, marketing, customer support and managed care across North America, Europe, China and India. Under his leadership, GeneDx’s revenue grew from $8M to over $225M across a menu of genetic testing products. He has worked closely with major health insurance carriers to obtain coverage and to maximize reimbursement for testing and he launched Sema4’s commercial business. He was recruited to PerkinElmer Genomics to lead full global commercial scale up of their business and presided over growing revenues to significant levels in a short period of time. His experience in building and managing global commercial organizations and his proven track record of stellar results allow him to lead Bionano’s efforts to expand and accelerate growth of its business.
“I am excited to work with this incredible team of talented people and I am grateful to Erik and the Bionano board for this opportunity,” commented Jason Priar, CCO of Bionano Genomics. “I have seen first-hand over the past two decades how important the timely and accurate identification of structural variations can be in people’s lives, including for children, but too often I have seen the existing tools used in cytogenomics fail to make an impact. OGM with Saphyr is something I believe has the potential to disrupt healthcare by making structural variation analysis just as accessible and routine as next-generation sequencing.”
About Bionano Genomics
Bionano is a genome analysis company providing tools and services based on its Saphyr system to scientists and clinicians conducting genetic research and patient testing, and providing diagnostic testing for those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disabilities through its Lineagen business. Bionano’s Saphyr system is a research use only platform for ultra-sensitive and ultra-specific structural variation detection that enables researchers and clinicians to accelerate the search for new diagnostics and therapeutic targets and to streamline the study of changes in chromosomes, which is known as cytogenetics. The Saphyr system is comprised of an instrument, chip consumables, reagents and a suite of data analysis tools. Bionano provides genome analysis services to provide access to data generated by the Saphyr system for researchers who prefer not to adopt the Saphyr system in their labs. Lineagen has been providing genetic testing services to families and their healthcare providers for over nine years and has performed over 65,000 tests for those with neurodevelopmental concerns. For more information, visit www.bionanogenomics.com or www.lineagen.com.
Now, since the "source" of the info above is Bionano Genomics, I suppose we have no clue if the figures quoted in bold print above, namely revenue figures for GeneDx, are accurate. But my best guess is that they were provided by Jason Priar himself, who was hired by BNGO on June 7, 2021 for the same role (Chief Commercial Officer) as the lovely Ms Stueland was at GeneDx just a couple weeks later. It is interesting to me in any case because I've long been guesstimating GeneDx to be a couple hundred million/year business, and recently apparently growing quite well. And even more interesting is the fact that Mr Priar left GeneDx in 2016, per LinkedIn. So, was GeneDx doing $225 million/yr five years ago, when he left? Huh? Finally, most interesting is the fact that a company with a symbol that sounds like a game in an elder care facility, likely doing less than ONE-TENTH the revenues of GeneDx, in the same business ballpark, has a market cap in excess of $1.5 billion.
So, let's torture ourselves and do some back of napkin math......nothing as fancy as that algorithmic master Jeff Cohen of Ladenburg mind you, but....and we can imagine what GeneDx alone COULD be worth if we infer from the numbers accorded to BINGO!, I mean BNGO. What do we get? If GeneDx is doing even $200 million in revenue, if we ascribe HALF the Market Cap/Sales Ratio (so, 50x sales), we get a $10 BILLION market valuation, JUST for Opko's gem of a genomics subsidiary.
Just to make you a little queasy, that's about $14.70/share, with no value given to the rest of BRLI, Somatrogon milestones and royalties, SARM, Oxy, and the misfit toys (Rayaldee, 4K, and the inhaler). Mind you, at the same multiple as that given to BNGO, that's $29.40/share.
Maybe we need Oppenheimer marketing our story to BNGO investors: Rennaisance Technologies, Vanguard, Invesco, Blackrock, Julius Baer, Susquehanna, Citadel, Fidelity, and the aforementioned Legend.
Read it and weep folks.
"There's decent connection between GeneDx and BNGO." Wondering if the comment was referring to Bingo games in Miami, or a public equity stock symbol, I logged onto my Bloomberg to see what I could find out. Lo and behold, BNGO is Bionano Genomics. Perhaps some here know it, but I did not. What history I could discern indicated the humble origins of the company to go back 10 years. The first Corporate Action that I could find was: "A consortium led by KLA Corp acquired a minority stake in Bionano Genomics Inc. The transaction was completed on 3/17/11." As far as I could tell, the company was not yet public. Then two and a half years later, this: "A consortium led by Gund Investment Corp acquired a minority stake in Bionano Genomics Inc. The transaction was completed on 10/2/13." Then, a year later: "A consortium led by Legend Capital and Novartis Venture Fund acquired a minority stake in BioNano Genomics Inc. The transaction was completed on 11/20/14." The "transaction values" for these three events were $23.3 million, $10 million, and $53 million, cash, respectively. Mind you, I have no idea how accurate these details are, but I'm fairly certain that the general info is correct. Then a 4 year hiatus, followed by a split, a listing in Berlin, then 2 more (reverse) splits. Finally, on 8/28/2018, the company was brought public by Roth Capital, selling 23 million+ shares at $6.125. The deal was "launched" fully 5 weeks earlier. I'm no expert in the nuances of IPOs, but that seems like a rather long period for a company to need to be marketed in order to line up enough investor interest to clear the market. Since then, Oppenheimer has underwitten 4 secondary offerings:
10/21/19 10.01 million shares at $0.85
4/2/20 16.9 million shares at $0.32
1/8/21 33.37 million shares at $3.05
then, just 12 days later, on 1/20/21 38.33 million shares at $6.00,
So, the stock went from an IPO price of $6.125 in August 2018, to $0.25 on 4/3/20, which was the day after that 16.9 million share secondary at $0.32. And over the ensuing 15 or so months, this phoenix climbed 12 fold, to $3.5, then basically doubled in 12 days (a 24 fold increase off the low.....how's THAT for a multiple of a TENBAGGER?), raising money like a banshee along the way. The stock hit $15.69 on 2/19/21, and is now, today....of course...back to...~$6.00 ($5.92 close). While I can't make the share count math work adding up all the offerings, the 10-K's show the outstanding share counts to have increased from 10 million in 2018, to 37 million in 2019, to ~279 million as of May 2021. This CEO would give Frosty a run for his money in the Diluter of the Decade Awards.
Now, even at the "depressed" price of $5.92, an Opkonian drop of 62.26% from the February high, even at this price, this company of very odd beginnings and dubious cap structure machinations sports a $1.65 Billion market cap. What are the revenues you ask? Well let's see: $8.5 million in 2020, a PROJECTED doubling to $16.1 million this year, and even greater heights for next year, $28 million, according to the tarot card readers. Profits? Oh, sorry...they're due to bleed about $50 million this year, and about $55 mill next year. So let's see, no net income, and a market cap equal to 100x this year's revenues, IF they hit the analyst "estimates." Who are those analysts? Well there's BTIG (remember, we obliged them in a chat during COVID, then they ghosted us) with a buy and a $10 PT; there's Maxim (a bucket shop, but the analyst is a Ph.D.) with the same PT, then there's our old buddy Kevin DeGeeter, formerly our Ladenburg coverage until he left for greener pastures, and more piles of green comp no doubt, at Oppenheimer (the aforementioned huckster, er, underwriter). DeGeeter has them at outperform, with a $14 target, no doubt reflecting the great underlying fundamentals and not the investment banking fees Oppy has collected over the past year. Finally, there's our new pal, Jeff Cohen, our new coverage (supposedly) at Ladenburg, who comes in with a $12 PT.
So here's a company with a checkered past, a bloated cap structure (I haven't even mentioned the warrants), huge losses, barely any revenue, and has a market cap 67% of Opko's. Makes perfect sense right? But here's where it gets even more interesting. The post on Discord following the one that started me down this rabbit hole led me to this inter web page:
www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/06/07/2242677/0/en/Bionano-Genomics-Appoints-Jason-Priar-Former-GeneDx-Sema4-and-PerkinElmer-Genomics-Sales-Leader-as-its-Chief-Commercial-Officer.html
Bionano Genomics Appoints Jason Priar, Former GeneDx, Sema4 and PerkinElmer Genomics Sales Leader, as its Chief Commercial Officer
June 07, 2021 08:00 ET | Source: Bionano Genomics
SAN DIEGO, June 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bionano Genomics, Inc. (Nasdaq: BNGO) announced today that Jason Priar has joined the company as its Chief Commercial Officer. Jason is a seasoned sales leader with experience scaling businesses from early stage to hundreds of millions in revenue. He has a deep understanding of how to penetrate clinical and research markets including genetic diseases and cancer. For Bionano, he will lead the commercial teams across the platform and services businesses to drive sales and market access with third party payors.
“We are thrilled to welcome Jason to Bionano. We believe he has the experience in scaling revenues and obtaining market access from third party payers that we need to accelerate global adoption of optical genome mapping (OGM) with our Saphyr® system and drive Lineagen’s business of providing diagnostic services in pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders,” commented Erik Holmlin, PhD, CEO of Bionano Genomics. “Jason’s intimate familiarity with the needs of traditional cytogenomics laboratories performing genome analysis in cancer and genetic diseases, combined with his understanding of needs of the physicians and pharmaceutical partners who apply the data, is among the best I have encountered in the industry. I believe adding Jason to an already stellar team can have a profound impact on Bionano.”
Jason’s experience includes sales in genetic diseases and cancer testing as well as pharmaceutical sales. After time with Forest Laboratories as a pharmaceutical detailer, he was selected for sales leadership positions at GeneDx, Sema4 and PerkinElmer Genomics with responsibilities covering sales, marketing, customer support and managed care across North America, Europe, China and India. Under his leadership, GeneDx’s revenue grew from $8M to over $225M across a menu of genetic testing products. He has worked closely with major health insurance carriers to obtain coverage and to maximize reimbursement for testing and he launched Sema4’s commercial business. He was recruited to PerkinElmer Genomics to lead full global commercial scale up of their business and presided over growing revenues to significant levels in a short period of time. His experience in building and managing global commercial organizations and his proven track record of stellar results allow him to lead Bionano’s efforts to expand and accelerate growth of its business.
“I am excited to work with this incredible team of talented people and I am grateful to Erik and the Bionano board for this opportunity,” commented Jason Priar, CCO of Bionano Genomics. “I have seen first-hand over the past two decades how important the timely and accurate identification of structural variations can be in people’s lives, including for children, but too often I have seen the existing tools used in cytogenomics fail to make an impact. OGM with Saphyr is something I believe has the potential to disrupt healthcare by making structural variation analysis just as accessible and routine as next-generation sequencing.”
About Bionano Genomics
Bionano is a genome analysis company providing tools and services based on its Saphyr system to scientists and clinicians conducting genetic research and patient testing, and providing diagnostic testing for those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disabilities through its Lineagen business. Bionano’s Saphyr system is a research use only platform for ultra-sensitive and ultra-specific structural variation detection that enables researchers and clinicians to accelerate the search for new diagnostics and therapeutic targets and to streamline the study of changes in chromosomes, which is known as cytogenetics. The Saphyr system is comprised of an instrument, chip consumables, reagents and a suite of data analysis tools. Bionano provides genome analysis services to provide access to data generated by the Saphyr system for researchers who prefer not to adopt the Saphyr system in their labs. Lineagen has been providing genetic testing services to families and their healthcare providers for over nine years and has performed over 65,000 tests for those with neurodevelopmental concerns. For more information, visit www.bionanogenomics.com or www.lineagen.com.
Now, since the "source" of the info above is Bionano Genomics, I suppose we have no clue if the figures quoted in bold print above, namely revenue figures for GeneDx, are accurate. But my best guess is that they were provided by Jason Priar himself, who was hired by BNGO on June 7, 2021 for the same role (Chief Commercial Officer) as the lovely Ms Stueland was at GeneDx just a couple weeks later. It is interesting to me in any case because I've long been guesstimating GeneDx to be a couple hundred million/year business, and recently apparently growing quite well. And even more interesting is the fact that Mr Priar left GeneDx in 2016, per LinkedIn. So, was GeneDx doing $225 million/yr five years ago, when he left? Huh? Finally, most interesting is the fact that a company with a symbol that sounds like a game in an elder care facility, likely doing less than ONE-TENTH the revenues of GeneDx, in the same business ballpark, has a market cap in excess of $1.5 billion.
So, let's torture ourselves and do some back of napkin math......nothing as fancy as that algorithmic master Jeff Cohen of Ladenburg mind you, but....and we can imagine what GeneDx alone COULD be worth if we infer from the numbers accorded to BINGO!, I mean BNGO. What do we get? If GeneDx is doing even $200 million in revenue, if we ascribe HALF the Market Cap/Sales Ratio (so, 50x sales), we get a $10 BILLION market valuation, JUST for Opko's gem of a genomics subsidiary.
Just to make you a little queasy, that's about $14.70/share, with no value given to the rest of BRLI, Somatrogon milestones and royalties, SARM, Oxy, and the misfit toys (Rayaldee, 4K, and the inhaler). Mind you, at the same multiple as that given to BNGO, that's $29.40/share.
Maybe we need Oppenheimer marketing our story to BNGO investors: Rennaisance Technologies, Vanguard, Invesco, Blackrock, Julius Baer, Susquehanna, Citadel, Fidelity, and the aforementioned Legend.
Read it and weep folks.