iBio Inc (IBIO)

[Moonistea]

DD: IBIO only play on ZMapp for Ebola

The producer of the preferred Ebola drug ZMapp is Mapp Biopharmaceuticals, a private company. The United States Health and Human Services Department has a $42 million dollar contract with Mapp to advance the commercial production of ZMapp

Mapp Bio currently is unable to produce large quantities of this drug and needs third parties to assist in production. The most likely candidate to do that is Caliber Biotherapeutics. Caliber has a huge facility for producing vaccines; but Caliber is also a private company and that's where iBio comes in:

iBio licenses it's iBioLaunch™ platform to Caliber, and therefore iBio's technology will be crucial to speeding up the production of ZMapp to deal with the exploding Ebola epidemic.

iBioLaunch™ uses proprietary, transient gene expression in unmodified green plants instead of materials such as chicken eggs, mammalian and insect cells, transgenic plants, and human blood plasma required by other systems, to produce important biologic pharmaceuticals. This unique plant-based platform offers a number of significant advantages over other systems:

Ability to synthesize complex proteins at which other systems have failed
Simplicity, scalability and flexibility
Reduced capital investment
Lower operating costs
Surge capacity
Rapid production times – gene sequence to factory-scale protein harvest
Eliminates the need of bioreactors
Low risk of contamination by animal pathogens

Based on available research, I believe that the most likely scenario going forward is that Mapp will produce ZMapp using both a traditional mammalian process and continue with the plant based process that they already use. However, the facility that Mapp is currently using can only produce 10-20 doses by year end. Caliber's facilities (using Ibio's proprietary technology) can produce thousands of doses in a shorter time frame to treat the thousands of people who currently are or will be suffering from Ebola in Africa and beyond.

Ibio offers a much more attractive price compared to biotechs like Tekmira and Chimerix who are also producing Ebola drugs. Ibio is also likely a better investment because Zmapp is currently the treatment of choice.

*All opinions stated are solely my own and are no substitute for your own research. Happy Investing!

For more info please read the articles below:

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2014pres/09/20140902b.html

http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/Ibio-About-To-Help-Mass-Produce-Ebola-Drug-ZMapp/s/via/24698/article/view/p/mid/1/id/3/

http://seekingalpha.com/news/2026025-ibio-jumps-on-possible-zmapp-production-ramp


*There is a Seeking Alpha article by a short seller that claims that Mapp will only be using the mammalian process, but the writer presents only selective evidence, siting the fact that the Gates Foundation has pledged money for the mammalian process. If you read the articles above you will see that Mapp is most likely to use a two-pronged approach. Further, HHS has given Mapp $42 million to produce as much Zmapp as possible, with Caliber having the only facility that can handle the level of production that is required.