Sorrento Therapeutics CEO on focusing on ‘the real deal’ antibody test rather than stock performance

Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi speak with Sorrento Therapeutics Founder & CEO Dr. Henry Ji about the company’s experimental antibody STI-1499.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: The coronavirus may be getting even more complicated. In China, there are now reports that doctors are seeing COVID-19 manifest differently among patients in a new wave of cases in the Northeast region there. Now, this news comes as the biopharma company Sorrento Therapeutics reported it found an antibody capable of inhibiting COVID-19 in a preclinical trial.

We are pleased to have with us now Sorrento Therapeutics founder and CEO Dr. Henry Ji. Doctor, thanks so much for being with us. This sounds promising. But first off, just tell people what-- what this is and what might it do if it were to hit market.

HENRY JI: Yes. This is a neutralizing antibody. That means that prevents the virus from infecting the normal healthy cells. So if you have a virus just hits you and it gets into your body, say somebody sneeze at you, if you have a neutralizing antibody that's circling around in your body, and you will be able to have the antibody wrap around the virus before they even get into the healthy cells.

So this way the virus will not get into the healthy cell. You know, a virus need to be replicated, propagated in the normal healthy cells. Without the virus get into the cell, you will not see the virus infection or the complication with it. So the key is you need to have a neutralizing antibody that prevents the virus gets into the cell.

BRIAN SOZZI: And Doctor, what's the next step? When should we expect this to be used on consumers? Where can you get it? What's the timeline?

HENRY JI: The first, you have to do clinical testing. And we are planning to get all the package needed to submit to the FDA, get the FDA approval to get into human sometimes in the next two to three months. It will get into the human if testing is safe and potentially have a therapeutic effect, then we can move into preventing the virus infecting the normal healthy people. And that means we're-- we're hoping this could be getting into the market sometimes very quickly if we get the FDA consent.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: You know, it's-- I know it's probably not the thing you're focused on, but us here at Yahoo Finance, we look at how stocks are reacting. And Sorrento has had quite a run, as had other companies in this space, Moderna included. Your stock of Sorrento Therapeutics has soared more than 70% recently.

The stock is coming back down a little bit. But what's your thinking on how Wall Street is seeing or interpreting what it is your company is doing? Do they have it right? Do investors have it right, right now?

HENRY JI: So what are we focusing on instead of watching the stock going up or going down, and we're focusing on make sure we have the real deal. So you have the antibody that can prevent the virus infecting healthy cells. That means you're going to have a real product.

If you have a real product, eventually the stock is going to be reflecting the assets you have. And we believe right now probably there's a lot of investor excited about this story. However, there is a lot of investor suspecting this is another pump and dump, which is typical, which is normal, but we don't believe that's the case.

And we have working with academic collaborator with a real virus infection. And when you see a virus is not infecting the healthy cell, you know you have the real deal. And I think that eventually the market catching up. As you know in short term, the stock price is a-- is a voting machine, and eventually is a winning machine, as, you know, Warren Buffett said. So I think, eventually, they will reflect the value we have here.

BRIAN SOZZI: Doctor, just to alleviate any concerns that this would be some type of pump and dump, you own 2% of the outstanding shares of the company. Are you inclined to go out there and buy more stock? And will you be doing that soon?

HENRY JI: Because, you know, as a company executives, I can only buy stock when there is no inside information. At this moment right now, I cannot buy any stock. And as you can tell from my history, I bought the stock at the $9, $13 because I believe the value we have created through the 11 years.

We have very big assets in the therapeutic antibody collection we have. And we have multiple compounds in the phase III and clinical stage. And we have one drug FDA already approved. So we doing the real thing. Sometime it takes time for people realize what we have.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Doctor, I was looking over your-- your financials for last quarter. The company lost close to $70 million. You have cash on hand of a little under $22 million. Is there a concern here that you might run out of cash? And are there plans to raise more?

HENRY JI: We always have a concern-- as a CEO of the company, you always have concern that you want to make sure you have enough cash to get the product developed and potentially commercialize it. So we have a lot of tools, as you can tell, we have a lot of tools to our-- in our hand so we can getting the financing we needed to support our dream to develop the therapeutic product that potentially conquered the COVID-19 pandemic.

BRIAN SOZZI: Doctor, are you nearing any partnerships with some other-- with some larger players to help manufacture this?

HENRY JI: So we are in constant discussion with different players. But in this case, we believe the antibody we have, we have the CGMP facility. We can manufacture them very easily.

We can produce in the hundred thousands doses, up to a million doses ourself without any help from anybody. But of course, we welcome any partnerships and the potential government support as well. So we are pursuing different angles for-- to scale up the manufacturing.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. Dr. Henry Ji, founder and CEO of Sorrento Therapeutics. Best of luck with the antibody. We all wish you well.

HENRY JI: Thank you. Appreciate it.