-
Nubeva’s Breadcrumbs
Frontier AI, Patents and the UK Trail Last year I wrote Decrypting The Exit: Nubeva’s Patent Play. The thesis was fairly straightforward: Nubeva Technologies was beginning to look like a company methodically assembling a potentially valuable software and intellectual-property asset focused on ransomware reversal. Building a strategic technology asset is difficult. You need novel, genuinely… Continue reading
-
The Trojan Horse in Canaccord’s Business Strategy
Today, Canaccord is a significantly larger and better company than in 2023 when management attempted to take it private in 2023 with a low ball offer Continue reading
-
Scouting Brilaroxazine
I love basketball. One of my favorite pastimes is looking at college players’ statistics and attributes and trying to project whether they can make the jump to the NBA. Making that projection is both an art and a science. There are measurable facts — points, rebounds, shooting percentage, height, wingspan and speed — and then… Continue reading
-
A Monster In The Deep
I’m in deep. As an investor in Reviva Pharmaceuticals (OTC: RVPH), I follow the company and its scientific progress very closely. So imagine my surprise when my research on Reviva’s patents stirred up something I consider very important — something that, as far as I can tell, hasn’t yet been meaningfully discussed or analyzed. There is a… Continue reading
-
Reviva’s Negative (Symptom) Potential
Followers of my blog – Or investors in Reviva Pharmaceuticals (OTC:RVPH) know that the journey of Reviva Pharmaceuticals (OTC: RVPH) has been both positive and negative. Positive, in the sense that the company has spent more than a decade advancing its drug brilaroxazine through multiple stages of scientific and clinical success, bringing the program to the threshold… Continue reading
-
MapLight Therapeutics: A Small Probability Upgrade Before the Real Test(s)
Earlier this year, I wrote about MapLight Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MPLT) as a case study in probability engineering. That post can be found here: https://dtm5.com/2026/02/12/maplight-therapeutics-engineering-probability-in-cns-drug-development/ CNS drug development has a long and colorful history of humbling investors. My original post was about MapLight appearing to have several attributes that could justify assigning probabilities above ordinary Phase 2… Continue reading
-
RVPH: A New Day for Brilaroxazine
Followers of my blog know that I’ve been an investor in (and out) of RVPH’s shares and warrants for approximately 5 years. It has been a heck of a ride, fraught with successes (P2! P3! OLE!), Financial Struggles (Predatory Financings!), soft market comms (Dr Bhat = Amazing Scientist, not a compelling public speaker!), and of… Continue reading
-
From Scale to Sale
I’ve been following Rivalry Corp (RVLY: TSX) for the past couple years. Back in January, I blogged about Rivalry and their re-org / recap, and hypothesized about what outcomes could look like if things ‘turned around’. Well, colour me surprised. What looked like a re-org to scale, was actually a re-org for sale. What initially… Continue reading
-
Northstar Gaming & Playtech PLC: A Stew of Debt, Strategy, Risk and Opportunity
Note: This post is an updated version of my August 25, 2025 post entitled “Unlocking IRR: Playtech’s Strategic Impact on NorthStar Gaming“, taking into account recent developments. When businesses make investments in other businesses, a key metric they consider is Internal Rate of Return (IRR). In simple terms, the IRR represents the expected compounded annual return… Continue reading
-
Maplight Therapeutics – Engineering Probability in CNS Drug Development
CNS drug development is often viewed in terms of binary outcomes. In actuality, they also are probabilistic, and those probabilities can be influenced by design. The distinction between a typical Phase 2 program and a ‘better engineered’ one is often subtle, but it matters. MapLight Therapeutics – which trades as MPLT on Nasdaq – appears to have built… Continue reading
-
Reviva Pharmaceuticals – A Non-Consensus Strategic Valuation Framework
Analysts, institutions, and sophisticated investors typically have access to the same clinical data, regulatory disclosures, and market signals. Yet strategic transactions in biotech and pharma routinely occur at valuations that appear disconnected from public-market pricing—especially when assets are not yet FDA approved or are earlier in development. I suggest the difference is not information, but… Continue reading
-
Rivalry Corp – Recapping the Optionality
Investing in early-stage public companies is risky. Things often don’t go as planned, and trouble ensues. Accordingly, shares values crash, and investors become gun-shy – unwilling to support a stock, until such time as real change and progress is evident. That’s the situation Rivalry Corp (TSX: RVLY) finds itself in today. My earlier views on… Continue reading
-
Who Should Own the Final Mile in CNS Drug Development? A Case Study in RVPH
This post is not about whether RVPH’s timeline is misunderstood. That question has largely been addressed in my previous post . Instead, this is about how late-stage schizophrenia assets are evaluated once the remaining risk is no longer scientific, but operational — and why that stage often forces a change in who carries the asset… Continue reading
-
Reviva’s Regulatory Path: Separating Delay from Deterioration
This post follows directly from my previous post Exploring RVPH’s Value Through an EV / Patient Analysis. That earlier post examined how late-stage CNS assets tend to be valued once patient exposure reaches meaningful scale. This post extends that framework to the FDA’s recent guidance, exploring how procedure and market perception can diverge from underlying… Continue reading
-
Exploring RVPH’s Value through an EV/Patient Analysis
Originally Published December 10, 2025. Updated February 12, 2026 I’ve been trying to answer the big question: What might a rational acquirer actually pay for Reviva Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RVPH)? Long-time readers of this blog know I have high conviction in the underlying science. What has been harder to reconcile is a persistent disconnect. Traditional analyst… Continue reading
-
Reviva’s High-Conviction Shortcut to Approval
Back in March 2022, I wrote about a mid-stage small-cap drug company — Reviva Pharmaceuticals. At the time, Reviva had just completed its Phase 2 study on a new compound called Brilaroxazine, and the results were exceptionally promising. That post is located here. Three years later, it’s been quite a journey. My approach has been… Continue reading
-
Boosting Boostrun Returns: When Warrants Make Sense
In my previous post on WLAC – Boostrun and Investing in the Unknown and Unknowable, I introduced the framework for looking at situations where the probability-weighted outcomes are highly asymmetric. Boostrun’s merger with Willow Lane (WLAC) provides this type of setup, and nowhere is that more evident than in the comparison between the common shares… Continue reading
-
Decrypting the Exit: Nubeva’s Patent Play
Back in February, I wrote about Nubeva’s painful pivot — a company that shed its TLS assets, downsized operations, and narrowed focus almost entirely to ransomware decryption. It seemed a survival move that came at the cost of scale, revenue, and investor confidence. Eight months later, Nubeva looks like a company quietly preparing to be… Continue reading
-
Boostrun and Investing in the Unknown and Unknowable
Richard Zeckhauser’s essay Investing in the Unknown and Unknowable (U&U) explores how exceptional returns can be achieved in situations where both outcomes and their probabilities are unknowable—by applying strategic reasoning, recognizing asymmetries, and leveraging complementary skills. Most investors prefer scenarios where probabilities can be assigned, models can be built, and ranges can be bounded. Zeckhauser… Continue reading
-
Autumn Leaves
At its core, my strategy – The DTM5 – is about building and managing a concentrated portfolio — a handful of positions where each earns its place on Merit, Asymmetry, Timing and Price. Autumn is upon us and I thought I’d make a fast comment on what I have in the strategy and what things… Continue reading
-
Unlocking IRR: Playtech’s Strategic Impact on NorthStar Gaming
When businesses make investments in other businesses, a key metric they consider is Internal Rate of Return. In simple terms, the IRR represents the expected total compounded annual returns on an investment, and a higher IRR indicates a more profitable investment. Hence, if the IRR of a project exceeds the opportunity cost of capital, it… Continue reading
-
A Horse With No Name
In early 2023, Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. (TSX: CF) became the subject of a management-led proposal to take the company private. At the time, from this author’s perspective, the bid felt opportunistic and somewhat ham-fisted — arriving in the midst of a capital markets downturn when CF’s valuation was depressed, and offering a modest premium… Continue reading
-
The Unshakeable Mind
On a misty morning on Ganryu Island, Japan’s most famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi, was late. This was no ordinary appointment; it was a duel to the death against the esteemed Samurai Sasaki Kojiro. When Musashi finally arrived, unkempt and armed with a crude wooden oar he had carved on the boat ride over, he wasn’t… Continue reading
-
Striking the Gap: Lessons from the Miyamoto Musashi / Shishido Baiken duel.
Those of you who follow the DTM5 blog know I draw inspiration and tactics from some very interesting historical figures. Miyamoto Musashi ~ Philospopher, Ronin, Kensei ~ is one of those individuals. This is the story of one of his lesser-known but deeply revealing battles—his duel with Shishido Baiken, a master of the kusarigama, a… Continue reading
-
Hunting Achieve Life Sciences
In 2021, I blogged about the incredible Jim Corbett—a man whose life has long fascinated me, not because of his fearlessness, but because of the way he approached danger and complexity. Corbett wasn’t merely a hunter. He was a naturalist and a strategist. He was a reluctant killer of man-eaters, whose primary motivations were the… Continue reading
