Oncolytics Biotech heads into its May 8 earnings report with the most compelling signal coming not from the options desk, but from the boardroom.
Ten insiders bought shares on or around February 12 — including the CEO, CFO, Chief Medical Officer, Chairman, and multiple independent directors. Every recent insider transaction has been a purchase. Net insider buying over the past 90 days reached 433,882 shares worth roughly $388,000. The values are modest in dollar terms, reflecting the stock's sub-dollar price at the time, but the breadth is striking: C-suite executives and board members alike added to their holdings at prices in the $0.83–$1.03 range, close to where the stock trades now at $0.93.
Short interest tells a more complicated story. Bears have been adding with conviction — SI has climbed nearly 20% over the past week to 7.0% of the free float, a meaningful position for a micro-cap biotech. Days to cover is a sizeable 10.8, meaning unwinding the short book would take more than two weeks at average volume. The borrow market is tight: the cost to borrow is running at roughly 17% annualised, and availability has been largely exhausted — the lending pool has hit maximum utilisation on multiple occasions over the past six weeks and remains near its 52-week tightest levels. The ORTEX short score has climbed sharply to 73.8 over the past two weeks, ranking in just the 7th percentile of the universe — a clear signal that this is one of the more aggressively shorted names in its peer group.
Those two forces — insider buying and rising short interest — pull in opposite directions. The bull case rests on clinical progress: Oncolytics' lead asset, pelareorep, is a systemic oncolytic immunotherapy with multiple ongoing studies, and the company has a track record of surprising to the upside on EPS, ranking in the 79th percentile for earnings surprises. The bear case is structural. The company generates zero revenue, is burning through roughly $38 million in operating cash flow annually, and an EV near $89 million leaves limited cushion for disappointment or further dilution. With no traditional valuation anchor — P/E and EV/EBITDA are both deeply negative — the stock is priced entirely on clinical optionality.
Recent price action reflects the tension. ONCY rebounded 6.6% on Monday but is still down 4.2% on the week and 3.4% over the past month. Peers in the gene editing and immuno-oncology space mostly bounced on the day — CRSP gained 3.8%, NTLA added 4.6%, and MRNA rose 4.3% — meaning ONCY's intraday gain kept pace with the sector but has not recovered its recent losses relative to the group. The May 8 print will test whether management can offer any clinical update or cash runway guidance capable of shifting the narrative against a backdrop of heavy short positioning and a thinly traded, fully borrowed lending market.
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