Just throwing it out there. It certainly could be separate, coincidental events. The timing is interesting and Petrichor seems an odd choice and not the typical investment bank that Cryoport has used in the past, so perhaps they were another party’s choice.
The sale of the property in the UK by Northwest Bio ensures they will have the necessary funds to finish the trial and complete the next steps to file BLA’s. I think Northwest Bio will finally release the long awaited topline data in the next six months (possibly in a few months), and they would like to make the big unveil on the grand stage at ASCO. I think they waited this long until the data matured to increase the likelihood of success. And yes, there are issues with the trial, but I think they will reveal unprecedented survival data in this landmark glioblastoma trial that will be irrefutable. It will take several months to analyze the data and prepare BLA’s, so it may be early 2020 for the regulatory authorities to approve it.
Cryoport has a logistics center near each commercial customer’s manufacturing facility, so I would think Northwest Bio would be the same. The UK may be the first filing. Since Cryoport was used in the clinical trial, and the cryologistics are a part of the CMC section of the BLA, Cryoport would have to ensure that they could handle commercial volumes by the BLA filing. It may take Cryoport at least six months to scale up, so they would have to make a move soon.
One simple way this could fit is if Petrichor (or another entity) bought the property from Northwest Bio, and then sold a portion to Cryoport and plans to further develop the rest of the property or sell it.
