Hey SJ, thanks, and glad you've found some of my posts helpful along the way. Spoiler alert here: I like to deal in facts, but this post is nearly 100% opinion and conjecture on my part.
To your first question, I'm still not sure what the answer is there. The conversation last weekend produced some examples of companies successfully building sales forces (thanks A17), although I haven't had time to research what exactly went into that and why they were successful where others failed. Finesand eventually threw a massive range of a number ($50-150mm??) for another company's efforts... but in the same breath conflated it with the money the company borrowed to continue its drug development program. Everyone else just yelled real loud and then patted EponymousKook on the back for saying nothing. So... I really don't know? I'm still curious as well. While acknowledging that I don't fully understand what goes into it, I still fail to see the massive expense or difficulty in building a sales team. It's not rocket science, and the drug would damn near sell itself. I do have relatives in medical device sales, and I understand that connections mean quite a bit. However, it's common practice to hire away sales reps from competing companies for that exact reason. As finesand noted, a deal with a distribution company would probably be required. But that makes it even easier... you just have to build a sales team. Until I read something or someone gives me examples to the contrary, I'm of the opinion that it could successfully be done for well less than the lower bounds of the range that finesand gave from her one example.
To your second question, my opinion is that this is one of the many options that NP/RP are likely exploring, but I find it slightly unlikely. Although management has discussed the possibility of licensing or selling off individual indications, I've never satisfied myself with an answer for how the logistics of such a deal would functionally work. Legal counsel once informed me that deals would probably do little to protect the licensee's market, and that language in the agreement would put the onus to enforce market infringements on the licensee themselves. That seems unpalatable to me, as a licensee. I think it's more likely that they'd be able to work a deal to sell/license ALL indications for a country or region (e.g. sell off Japan...), but I've recently been thinking that that is likely complicated as well by differences in regulatory regimes.
To answer your second question more succinctly, I think that given the opportunity and with the right deal, they'd consider following the strategy you've laid out. However, I doubt it's the most likely option. It'd be more risky and probably would take longer, but could make huge returns. I'm sure that the company would prefer a broad, general partnership on reasonable terms given the level of risk that BP has(n't) shouldered during the development process. I think the company is too expensive for an upfront buyout right now; maybe down the road though, by any hypothetical partner.
At this point though, I doubt that we'll see any deal before we see some cancer data. I bet they were working hard on trying to find something (sell the diagnostic test, license off Japan, etc) a few months back, but then the cancer IND got sped through the FDA. That's now the single biggest piece of information that neither side of the table has - how will this perform in the cancer trial that's about to start? That's the big market, that's the key question, and I think we'll see movement after we get data. As a result, NP/RP have just gone on the fundraising trail. Notice that most of the recent conference dates have popped up late, even to the point of right before the conference. To me, that's evidence that they chose to pursue this path once the events/circumstances that I just described came to pass. The small raises, as distasteful as they are to many of us, are likely the best path forward for the moment.
Unless... Gilead gets scared after its latest failure and jumps the gun. Wouldn't surprise me. They're going to lose their HIV cash cow in a year or two if they don't get in on this, so I could maybe see them taking a swing on this before cancer data and taking the whole thing on terms palatable to CytoDyn. Preserves their cash flows and might give them the next big thing in oncology, but they'd have to make an offer the company couldn't refuse to take it all before we see interim data, and that would probably involve overpaying for HIV, either through massive upfront money or by taking very lenient terms on cancer royalties. Honestly, they'd probably be smart to do so. They don't want to have to (hypothetically) beat offers from Pfizer, Merck, Roche, GSK, and whoever else has an oncology portfolio where leronlimab would be a good fit.
