Biotech Values

[Titan V]

Suitors Take Note as Bay Area's Nektar May Be Up for Sale
https://www.biospace.com/article/unique-suitors-take-note-as-bay-area-s-nektar-may-be-up-for-sale/

John Carroll, with Endpoints News, writes, “It hasn’t all been a bed of roses for Nektar over the past year. The biotech attempted to win an accelerated European OK for its cancer drug Onzeald (NKTR-102), but ran straight into a regulatory brick wall. The CHMP voted thumbs down on Onzeald, which was also bad news for Daiichi Sankyo, which bet $20 million upfront on a regional licensing pact for the drug. Daiichi recently signaled that it wanted to bail on the deal.”

The company’s stock has more than tripled in value since early November, largely based on results for NKTR-214. Shares are currently trading at $88. The 52-week high was $99.02 and the 52-week low was $12.50. Nektar has a market cap of $13.857 billion.

The company’s value, and the high-risk aspects of its pipeline, might make buyers uneasy, making licensing or partnership deals more likely.

Bloomberg writes, “A Nektar sale would add to a $25 billion burst of biotechnology and drug deals since Jan. 1, with extra cash from the U.S. tax law passed last year seen as fueling a continuing boom. The tax law should unlock about $160 billion in overseas cash for big drugmakers to spend on takeovers, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analyst Salveen Richter has estimated.”

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Brad Loncar, founder of Loncar Investments and the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy Index, told Bloomberg, “Owning NKTR-214 could either put an acquirer in a league of their own or blow up in their face, because all the excitement surrounding this drug is based on very little patient data, as intriguing as it is.”