Spectrum Pharmaceutecals Inc (SPPI)

[antihama]

Yeah, I did take notice the blip about partnering their assets. For Rolontis in the EU, I think much of it will be based on milestones based incentives but if they get, say, 20M upfront will be nice. Regarding Pozi, the partnering benefits will be considerable, I think big pharma will be stepping over themselves to get this asset but the earliest I see that happening is after more positive news (e.g. breakthrough therapy designation, more positive data) on pozi comes out; the more solid data, the valuable pozi will be to a partner. For example, AstraZeneca already has the infrastructure marketing Tagrisso in EGFR T790 mutations. Pozi would fit in perfectly with them as would other big pharma marketing in NSCLC space in the EU. Not only that but I can see them in helping Pozi expand the market via basket studies. I agree with you that would be difficult. They would need to expand the market by developing diagnostic tests/expanding use of tests to look at HER2 and EGFR Exon 20 insertion mutations. Recent in the news was "Loxo Sells Bayer Rights To Rare Cancer Drug For More Than $1 Billion" (Forbes article) which gets into the challenges of treating a specific tumor that is in any part of the body as the following excerpt notes

Despite larotrectinib's effectiveness, Bayer and Loxo will face a marketing challenge. TRK mutations are rare, involved in as few as 0.5% of cancer patients. That still represents a sizeable patient population, but finding them means running diagnostic tests -- including high-tech DNA sequencing -- to find those patients. Such testing has not become standard even for late-stage cancer patients. In order for the medicine to become a success, Bayer and Loxo will need to find the patients who need it.

So I am excited about the basket trial approach but regarding the share price rise these last couple of days, I'll go with reasons # 2 and 3 that you provided as most important.

2. breakthrough for poziotinib is just around the corner - the market is pricing it in and maybe now or in the future pricing it above the real value ..

3. They mentioned for the first time that they will partner their assets in Japan and Europe - this is one thing the market always reacts on, because of the cash inflow and the prospect that there won't be any dilutions any more (= break even on the horizon is always the strongest price driver in biotech)