$PVCT: It doesn't get more definitive.

It doesn't get more simple than this. I think management's position on two key value drivers clearly is definitive.

#1. The SPA is key to life sciences investors getting into the stock because of the very specific regulatory path clarity and the management of such it provides. Get the SPA, and these investors will buy Provectus shares.

#2. Life sciences investors need to understand PV-10's clinical relevance. Substantive data explaining the "bystander effect" and PV-10's immune mediated signaling, a new pathway, among other things, will be presented at a major conference and contemporaneously published in a peer-reviewed publication for the first time (I am confident I figured out the names of the conference and journal). Moffitt explains the systemic and immune-mediated benefit of local agent PV-10, and these investors will buy stock.

#3. China needs no comment from management. Close at least a good regional license deal with good upfront, milestone and royalty payments, and investors of all stripes will buy Provectus shares.

I looked at these three near-term value drivers -- the SPA, Moffitt's work and a China deal -- and their respective importance to key Provectus constituents: the FDA, Big Pharma, life sciences investors, and investors at large (of which I of course am one). This assessment is illustrated in the table below.

The FDA is the constiuent most relevant to PV-10's regulatory path for (a) the SPA so Provectus ultimately may achieve approval for the focused label of local treatment of Stage III MM cancer patients, (b) accelerated approval for MM, which could have a one-in-two chance of being achieved after Moffitt's conference presentation and journal publication, and (c) to a lesser extent only because management is mum on the topic, breakthrough therapy designation for liver cancer.

Big Pharma cares about the SPA, but it seems they care much more about Moffitt's story and explanation of PV-10's clinical relevance. Randomized data, interim or otherwise, is very meaningful to Big Pharma. Should the pivotal MM trial start at the end of March or in April, it is conceivable an interim dataset could be made available to Pfizer and others to peruse in late-Q3 or Q4 2013. Nevertheless, the new pathway discovered explains how PV-10 facilitates the death of cancer, and it could be novel and important enough to spur Big Pharma to act. Only time and the degree of Moffitt's reception by the global oncology community will tell.

Life Sciences Investors care about the SPA and Moffitt. Management comes across as definitive on these items: Get it and explain it, respectively, and these investors will buy Provectus stock.

Investors at large care about the SPA, Moffitt and China. Portions of this constituency get in early -- before the SPA, Moffitt and China fully unfold -- because they like the story and think they understand the opportunity. Other portions jump in after one or more of these events occur. Still others enter the fray as the share price moves higher.

It is fair, now, to both management and shareholders, to measure the resulting movement or lack of movement in share price after the SPA's receipt and Moffitt's explanations, whether you're an investor in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York, Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, California, or in one of many other places in North America, Europe and Asia.

In truth, no one really knows what the company's share price will do until it does it. After the SPA and Moffitt, let's take stock (pardon the pun) of Provectus, management and the share price.

PVCT: Change -- Pete is presenting at #BIOCEO13 on February 11 @ 1100 ET

Conference details may be found here. Craig is under the weather, and cannot travel to BioCEO in New York.

$PVCT: A reminder Craig is presenting at #BIOCEO13 on Monday @ 1100 ET

Conference details may be found here.

A $PVCT Vignette

I think management acknowledges serious life sciences investors to whom they have spoken are the waiting for the SPA, at a minimum, to arrive before they begin buying -- the "time value of money" perspective for these kinds of fund investors. They are event-driven, quarter-to-quarter animals that need a clearer path. The share price performance in 2010 (starting in Q2), 2011 and 2012 that punished generalist funds (i.e., non-life sciences ones) in the stock is what serious life sciences folks avoided by waiting for the events they deem necessary to have occurred before entering the fray.

$PVCT: Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!

The mostly institutional, but non-life sciences, participants of Provectus' March 2010 private placement (1Q10) are likely mostly gone. I think nearly 85% of the preferred shares have been converted to date into common stock and sold over time. My assumption is that these folks either held the preferred to enjoy the coupon, or converted them into common share that they sold right away.

Click on the figure to enlarge it.

The preferred shares in the placement were issued at $0.75 per share. Most of the 85% -- about 60% of this number -- converted and very likely sold within 3 quarters of the placement. 15% gradually sold as the common stock share price stayed above the issue price (through 2Q12). Another 10%, I think, sold in last quarter (3Q) and are selling thus far this quarter (4Q).

Click on the figure to enlarge it.

Some funds took profit very quickly. Others held on to take profit more slowly or in hopes of greater but still faster return. I wonder if some of the recent pressure on the stock has been due to the departure of more of the remaining funds that participated in the placement.

Click on the figure to enlarge it.

$PVCT.OB: NYSSA Life Sciences Conference

Craig is speaking at the New York Society of Security Analysts' Life Sciences Conference on Thursday, November 29 at 11:45 am EST.

Blog Reader Question

Will the SPA have any influence on the [share price] at all?

The SPA should have a significant influence on the share price.

The premise is simple. Receive an SPA, and certain life sciences-focused investors will buy stock. This has been the observation of my anecdotal due diligence on this topic,and what I believe is management's own perspective. From Friday's closing price of $0.71 and a market capitalization of, per Google Finance, about $80MM, the SPA, which thus paves the regulatory path for PV-10 to be approved primarily as a local-regional treatment, should spur some life sciences-focused and a good number of generalist professional and retail investors to jump into a stock whose market capitalization they could see as multi-hundreds of millions of dollars (i.e., $2-3 per share).

A positive outcome (i.e., closer to or in excess of $2 per share), however, is not so simple.

First, is supply too much? Weighing down the flight of the share price are:

• The [purported] remaining selling of Dr. Adams' shares. It has been speculated, I think on the Yahoo! Finance Provectus board, that this figure is about 2 million shares.

• Profit taking by some investors. The amount of profit taking will increase as the share price approaches $2. Many retail investors who have been underwater on their holdings for some time very likely will sell if their respective cost bases are exceeded by 20-30%. I guess several million shares will come to market as we near $2; and

• Warrant exercising into common stock that are then sold rather than held: As at 12/31/12, ~12MM at $0.95 and $1.00, ~4MM at $1.12, ~5MM at $1.25 and ~3MM at $1.50. Not taking into account the adjustment for cashless exercises, etc., this is about 25MM shares that would be $0.50 to more than $1 in-the-money as the share price approaches $2.

Second, is demand enough?

• Some life sciences-focused investors may be constrained by fund criteria that prevents the purchase of the stock while it is an over-the-counter stock. After a minimum $2 closing price after 5 days, followed by the transition of the PVCT ticker to the NASDAQ, they should jump in, too.

• Some investors will wait until the share price exceeds $5 before their fund criteria permits then to buy stock; and

• Despite the receipt of the SPA, other life sciences-focused investors will wait for the second release of Moffitt murine study work and/or the first release of Moffitt human study work before they too will buy shares. This also, I believe, is management's perspective.

Is there demand for 20-30MM shares, in the near-term, after the SPA PR is issued? Quite possibly. More demand should come on-line when more Moffitt results are released. Even more demand will materialize as a dermatology deal is done, mini-oncology deals are consummated, and Big Pharma relationship revelations are made.

But the first portion of the share price ascent surely will be tested.