Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[Lemoncat]

"It's obvious once we got into the moderate-severe cases that Prurisol had little to no effect."
When exactly did that become obvious?

To us? About the time we got the quiet filing that stated Prurisol had been discontinued and it was scrubbed from the website. Surely if it has any value we would have auctioned it for $420K like we did Brilacidin-UP.

"Prurisol probably did not work on mild-moderate psoriasis"
Probably? Isn't that why you run a trial? Did those mice have magical powers? Were they prettied up for the camera?

It would seem by 2018 we no longer lacked the funds to pursue any new phase 2b trials. We can only deduce that the weak signal from phase 2a combined with what must have been absolutely pitiful phase 2b results, caused the company to opt out of pursuing that path.

As for the mice? Obviously the result didn't translate.

"B-ABSSSI on the other hand had a rock solid high-powered phase 2B which was a stellar success. What has prevented a partnership?"
Maybe your idea of rock solid isn't universally shared.

Maybe, but I think it's hard to argue the results were not great. We effectively matched Cubicin with a single-dose regimen.

"the market must not be as rosy as it was for Cubicin otherwise we would have made a deal by now."
"The North American antibiotics market is expected to reach US$ 18,004.25 million by 2027 from US$ 13,527.79 million in 2019."

I was speaking about the market for Brilacidin-ABSSSI which would be a tiny fraction of that number. Again if the TAM for B-ABSSSI was similar to that of Cubicin we would have easily signed a partnership. There must have been some reason why the TAM was not as juicy: generics (including Cubicin which is now the generic Daptomycin), Novel ABX's being held in reserve, etc. Obviously something didn't add up to somebody.

Here is a great article on the topic:

https://sperotherapeutics.com/billion-dollar-antibiotics-era-stewardship/

It's from 2018 and it lists ABSSSI as an antibiotic space that has low unmet need and high competition in the space.

Note they remark that one of the great attributes of success (granted to Cubicin in the article) was that of a high unmet need and a lack of generic competition. ABSSSI was a blue sky for Cubicin. Now that Cubicin is generic, there is no longer a high unmet need (Cubicin/Dapto meets it) and Daptomycin is now generic. It appears the very comparison Leo was chasing after doomed Brilacidin's profitability in the ABSSSI space.

We developed a star product in 2014 for a market that disappeared in 2016 with Cubicin's patent expiration.

The only thing that can bring that market back is for antibiotic resistance to Daptomycin to become a major problem. Until then, no one is investing $30M in a B-ABSSSI phase 3 barring a government incentive.

Go IPIX!