It has been an interesting week that is for sure and a ton of speculation. Let me add to that speculation by building on a partnership of sort with Roche. I believe the Roche / NWBO parthenship will be structured to match the partnership they undertook with FMI back in 2015 as follow.
Basel, 12 January 2015
Roche enters a broad strategic collaboration with Foundation Medicine in the field of molecular information in oncology
Collaboration leverages both companies’ strengths to advance the progress of personalized treatments for patients with cancer
Roche to acquire a majority interest in Foundation Medicine (FMI) of up to 56.3% on a fully diluted basis through a tender and acquisition of newly issued shares. Roche will tender for approximately 15.6 million Foundation Medicine shares at USD 50 per share with an aggregate tender value of approximately USD 780 million. Roche will also invest USD 250 million in Foundation Medicine by acquiring 5 million newly issued shares at USD 50 per share.
Partnership includes both a broad R&D collaboration with the potential for more than USD 150 million funding by Roche to accelerate FMI’s new product development initiatives, optimize treatments for oncology patients, and better design and understand the results of clinical trials based on molecular information, as well as commercial collaboration agreements aimed at expanding the global sales efforts for FMI’s current and future products.
Michael J. Pellini, MD, FMI’s president and CEO, and FMI’s management team, will continue to lead FMI post-closing; Company will maintain operational independence; Roche to obtain minority representation on the expanded FMI Board of Directors; Roche and FMI Boards of Directors have unanimously approved the transaction.
Novel approaches to R&D, Product Development and Commercialization
Under the terms of the R&D collaboration agreement, Roche is committing to R&D funding of potentially more than USD 150 million for a minimum of five years and will contribute its expertise and breadth in oncology. FMI will continue to operate independently and will contribute its experience in the development of comprehensive genomic profiling tests for oncology. The initial focus of the R&D collaboration will be on developing genomic profile tests for cancer immunotherapies and for continuous blood-based monitoring.
Roche will be able to utilize FMI’s proprietary molecular information platform to standardize clinical trial testing. This aspect of the relationship is designed to enable comparability of clinical trial results for R&D purposes, and ultimately in the clinic. FMI’s pharmaceutical business will not be impacted and could be enhanced as FMI capabilities increase with the investments and experience in working with Roche as a customer.
I believe this type of collaboration would suit LP and allow NWBO to build up their pipeline and bring DCVAX to the world. Who knows within a couple of years the share price could be 50 to 100 in this type of a setup.
Something to ponder but I believe this may be exactly what LP would agree to and with the obvious synergy with FMI as well we are onto a winner.
Thoughts.
