Hi Happy,
I'm an ideal world, yes it would be great to wait for approval first. But that is not the case in this field which takes exorbitantly large sums of cash to make it to approval. Hence, $200 million spent so far, without approval.
This is why companies that do get a big Pharma to partner with them, can often see their price raise dramatically. Everyone knows the value this brings. Cash, milestone payments, expertise in the field, instant credibility. Decreases the risk of failure from a financial standpoint tremendously.
We were at one point, getting closer than ever to running out of cash to see this thing through. Within 18 months I believe. Yes our situation is much better at the moment, but they put a cost cutting contingency plan into place in case they couldn't strengthen their balance sheet. This was the same year they gifted themselves $5 to $6 million in bonuses. Astonishing to me. That cash would have been much better served in funding operations. And as an FYI, their presentation states the 3 funding sources. It's funny that only one of the 3 state collaborative. Other two make it look like all the cash is ours, which is not even close to being the case. Shady and misleadimg to say the least.
Going it alone, which they seem to be doing, is still extremely risky. What would happen if the ARS results when they come in sometime, aren't that great? Or the IC results aren't the best? I don't think they have the ability to raise any more right now, let alone if one of those two things happened. Along with all the other associated risks that could happen in conducting clinical trials.
And let say we do go it alone and get approval for something other than ARS. What chunk of the pie are we going to pay for marketing, distribution sales etc. They would have taken on zero risk. So how much would they be willing to accept to utilize their resources. They're used to getting gobs of cash everywhere they turn, so why waste their valuable resources doing this for us without being paid a substantial amount. Would hate to get a low10's royalty rate for taking on little to no risk.
Honestly I would think if they were going to in fact do this alone, do it alone for the entire way. If we were to get approval, we would be able to fund the necessary things to set up marketing, sales, distribution etc. A significant increase in price would allow a raise at a much higher price to fund this. Sure it may take time in building this out, but with a steady stream of money to start flowing in, this would make sense to me. More so if it's on an indication where there is no other suitable treatment.
And if we were to potentially have other products come on to market in the coming years, why give any piece away. That's what big pharma did to get themselves to where they are now. So why not us. That way you have control of every aspect of the company, from beginning to end.
Now obviously I am basing all of this imo, with logic being my only guide. It is an extremely complicated field to say the least. And even more obvious, I am putting a giant cart before the horse. But just some things to think about, and would be even better if one day we are actually discussing this.
AI
