Perceptive Edelman's interview was quite bullish too. To quote,
There is a level of skepticism about Versartis that is unfounded. It has a long-acting growth hormone that you inject every two weeks. A big part of the market is kids who take the daily injections to improve their height. In the original study, there was a question about whether this was less effective than the daily. When Adam analyzed it, it looked roughly equivalent. Versartis has increased the dosage for the Phase 3 trial that finishes this fall. There’s every reason to think that will solidify the performance of the drug. The pediatric market is close to $2 billion worldwide. If Versartis’ long-acting hormone is the first approved for pediatric use, you can see them getting 30% to 50% of sales. Their plan is to price at parity with daily injections. The company has a market cap of $550 million. If they get to 50%, they could get close to $1 billion worldwide. Put a multiple of six times, which is about average for a product like this, and obviously that would make it a $6 billion market cap. Then there is the adult market, for improving lean body mass, which is approximately $1 billion now, and off-label users for anti-aging purposes, which of course the companies don’t encourage. There will still be doubters, but I’m giving you an example about how you might extrapolate. This company basically has one drug. The daily growth-hormone market is very competitive. Most of the companies who make and sell it don’t have anything long-acting in their pipeline. It’s more than likely a big company will want to sell this drug, say Teva Pharmaceuticals, NovoNordisk, Pfizer, or Roche.
