This is all IMHO.
When the first Car-T Co was bought initially for 10 or 11 billion, it wasn’t because they had “sales” that justified it, it was because their data and the opportunity to be in a major new area of treatment (even though that area had a slew of competitors and was limited to blood cancer, and the treatment killed patients) there was no amazing manufacturing, like here it was all hand made in clean rooms, but much more expensively and it was extremely costly to make individual doses, exactly like DCVax (though DCVax is made in multi year batches at one go). Contrarily to Car-T, DCVax is quite alone at this moment comparatively, in the dendritic immunotherapy field with firms out there but behind, and not likely to have a better product soon with the same breadth of data over so long of a period.
Additionally it has little to no side-effects, appears to have great potential with a wide array of solid tumor cancers, will shortly be automated in terms of manufacturing with an immediate 10 times improvement to manufacturing, can be manufactured in batches that last 3 years, costs less per year, and can be provided potentially at patient’s doctor’s offices (again with virtually no ill side-effects). Did I mention that it is a custom made vaccine for that patient’s cancer and seems to stop metastasis and recurrence in some group of the patients? All IMHO.
I hear your skepticism on some prices thrown out, but I also don’t think you can necessarily set the kinds of limits you’re setting either. No one knows. What people can do is look at benchmarks of other buyouts and how they might compare.
If the data is as spectacular as it could be given interim data, and if there is great scientific enthusiasm, then while I have no doubt there will be analysts expressing skepticism to sound “smart” and to advance the interests of potential acquiring firms that are their firm’s clients, there will also be competitive and other pressures. Quick partnership deals can accelerate the valuation process. And we know the company may have some serious trump cards it might play, like the combination therapy patent which is still live and in play and I believe is likely to be a potentially very valuable strategic device at multiple levels of play.
I am not sure at all that the cap has to be set particularly “low” (as per opinions people give on what premium it might go for over a share price) on what this company might sell for even at an early stage. Many things might actually set the early cap on the price much higher than some skeptics might expect. And if Sawston revenues are higher than expected even before approval, you can bet that might have an impact as well. I am open minded as to likely potentials being reached more quickly than some anticipate, though I recognize also there are major potential limiting factors as well. But it’s a swirl of unknowns.
NVCR had incredibly low revenue numbers for where they were valued and I think despite reasons to be very skeptical, their valuation reached very generous numbers in my opinion, for a leather cap / plus batteries, much earlier than was reasonable and of course their price has come down since given the likelihood of an onrush of real competitors, most likely DCVax.
I don’t think speculation on prices is unreasonable, and certainly care to be skeptical is reasonable, but no one really knows. I think rather the better approach is to discuss possible benchmarking against most recent comparable acquisitions and valuations. To me, that seems likely the best approach.
People calling out random numbers seems like maybe not the best approach. But maybe a request for justifications. I do not think revenue numbers justified the car-t valuation, but I also do not think they were in a position even at that point to be giving numbers. I think NWBO is going to very possibly be generating interesting revenues even prior to approval, if things go according to plan in the U.K. contrary to many opinions here and elsewhere. That would be quite spectacular and unusual for a new technology, as complex as this one, and for a company this small, prior to approval.
All IMHO.
AI
