Biotech Values

[vinmantoo]

A biotech company with ambitions to compete with Pfizer’s blockbuster Covid-19 pill announced mixed results from a study of its experimental antiviral therapy and won’t carry forward with development of the drug on its own.

That is a purposely misleading comment. ENTA had always made it clear it wouldn't run a phase 3 trial on its own no matter what the data showed. That comment implies that ENTA won't do so because of the data from the SPRINT trial.

Investing in biotech can be risky so you must some diversity, and I do and also advise others who ask me to do the same. I made more than >3x as much on IMGN as I lost on ENTA this morning, RVNC has also been doing well and SGEN is getting bought out at a big premiums, so April and May and 2023 have been very good to me.

Back to ENTA, the fact remains that EDP-235 showed a statistically significant reduction in Covid symptoms in a healthy young population, something Paxlovid failed to do in a trial several fold larger that the SPRINT. This was even though the population in the SPRINT trial ENTA just ran more rapidly decreased virus that in the Paxlovid trial, which means to me that there was less time for EDP-235 to reduce symptoms than what Paxlovid had to deal with in the PFE trial.

One question that was asked in the CC was the market for anti-Covid drugs now that Covid is essentially endemic. The market for such drugs are ~$10 billion in 2023. PFE estimated $8 billion for 2023 but reported $4 billion for Q1. The market is still quite big and will remain so for quite some time.

There is no hiding that is it painful to see an investment drop as much as ENTA did today. I did buy more ENTA this morning at $24.15. I will probably keep buying over the next few days. In a month or two I will likely sell some as I need a tax loss to reduced my capital gains from the SGEN buyout. Still, my goal is to have more shares of ENTA than I did before the SPRINT trial data was released. I am not telling everyone they should do this. That is my plan and you have to weigh what to do yourself.

Good luck to you and other ENTA investors as we move through this challenging time.