And to respond to your edit, I can understand the fear of failure from going it alone, but I don't consider that to be disqualifying. Nobody expects the current employees to have that expertise - they'd have to bring that on. Is there execution risk? For sure, but it could very well be worth it. Plus, the anecdotal evidence that "others have failed" doesn't bother me a bit, because every situation is unique.
Royalty rates in licensing/partnership deals are intended to capture the financial risk/reward ratio that a financially-sponsoring partner takes on in the development process. I.e. the more uncertainty there is over the future of the drug, the higher the royalty split for the BP would have to be to compensate them for the risk that their financial investment will not bear fruit. And most deals are struck early in the development process, somewhere between pre-clinical and P2. As a result, most of the royalty rates heavily favor the BP, and leave the developing company with peanuts, relatively.
It's very rare that deals occur when the developing company is already in the process of filing a BLA. You can make those odds even longer by saying that said drug is novel in it's field, had never had an SAE reported in any of it's trials, and plays in a relatively big and splashy field (HIV). I don't really think there's a comp for this out there, and I'd be willing to bet that the hold up is that BP's are trying to wring out royalty rates that they're accustomed to getting, without shouldering much of the financial burden and even less of the risk. If they're unwilling to budge, I'm all for CYDY making the play to go it alone rather than just hand BP several billion in revenue annually for the convenience of not having to build a marketing team. Those that take the risk should get the reward.
I think someone will eventually budge and give "good enough" royalty rates on HIV that CYDY will bite. Maybe 50/50. For a big HIV player trying to steal market share, it's a win/win/win. Take little risk on the drug, make money, and drink Gilead's milkshake in the process. For CYDY, the real prize is cancer. The ability to keep that revenue for itself - or just dictate terms of a commercialization deal - could end up being a financial win massive implications for company value.
Please note that this wasn't written to educate you on anything, so don't feel patronized. Just putting my thoughts on paper, so to speak.
