Nano-X Plans to Disprove Short Sellers, ‘Crush’ Allegations

(Bloomberg) -- Nano-X Imaging Ltd.'s shares soared 35% Friday after the company confirmed plans for a live demonstration of its medical imaging technology, with Chief Executive Officer Ran Poliakine saying the presentation will “crush” allegations from short sellers.

The stock has been hammered in recent weeks amid pressure from short-seller reports. Last week, Muddy Waters named the company a short, claiming it has “no real product to sell other than its stock.” That report followed on the heels after Citron's negative call on the company and set a $0 price target.

Poliakine plans to show the Nanox ARC system in action at the Radiological Society of North America conference in Chicago, which runs Nov. 29 to Dec. 5. The presentation will stream live globally and feature distribution partners and radiologists.

The CEO first revealed plans for the demonstration on Thursday to Bloomberg News, sending shares up about 2% before soaring 28% in postmarket trading, when the company officially announced it would attend the conference.

Nano-X's stock has been on a roller coaster ride since its debut over the summer. Shares soared 257% from its IPO price of $18 in August to a high of $64.19 on Sept. 11, but have plummeted about 50% since then amid pressure from short-seller reports. Meanwhile, short interest reached a peak of 12.4% of its float on Monday before falling to 9.4% on Friday, according to data from S3 Partners.

Poliakine spoke with a Bloomberg reporter Thursday and slammed the short seller reports and said the demonstration will serve as vindication.

“They say that we have no viable technology or product. As simple as that,” he said in a phone interview. “We're going to present to the world, publicly, live, everything that will simply crush all these baseless things.”

Nano-X has its share of defenders, too. On Sept. 15, Oppenheimer initiated the company at perform, saying it “represents a potentially disruptive play in the medical diagnostics and industrial screening sector.” Meanwhile, Cantor set a price target implying almost three-fold in returns on Thursday's closing price. That came the same day that Citron published a report where it called the company a “complete farce on the market.”

Chief among Citron's claims was that Nano-X “could not get the most simple of FDA clearance.”

Nano-X submitted its 510(K) application to the FDA in January, but in March it received a request for additional information and data. Poliakine said the company plans to submit the additional application this year and still believes it will gain regulatory clearance in all territories it has contracts with by the first half of 2021, in time to ship 1,000 units before the end of that year.

Chief Financial Officer Itzhak Maayan said in the same phone interview on Thursday that he takes the short allegations “very seriously,” but that Nano-X has the full support of strategic partners such as FoxConn and SK Telecom to reach the greater goal of deploying 15,000 units by 2024.

“Over the longterm, the only way to produce value to our shareholders is by executing and deploying 15,000 units on a global basis,” Maayan said. “And what they would like to hear from us, and this is what we're assuring them, is that we are not being distracted by this noise.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.