Biotech Values

[HeroicEmpire46]

Thanks for your response and responses from others. Its good to get opinions from other stake holders.

As you point out Luly is 67 and much older than the average biotech CEO. I think the BOD has his age in mind and they've hired a few younger people in the management team during the last 3 or so years. I don't think there is anything in the advanced Enanta pipeline that is worthy of an acquisition so I think he only has a few more years left but money is running short and a change of direction is required sooner rather than later.

My opinion regarding Luly is based on his track record as CEO. I invest regularly in biotech companies. While it is true that failure in early stage compounds is quite common Enanta has not progressed any of its compounds into a late stage trial in almost 8 years while burning about 200M a year. While there are other biotechs that do exactly that its unclear to me why anyone who is a shareholder would be accepting of that. As pointed out, the solution is to simply not invest. The problem for me, as well as a lot of other people, is that we're already invested in what seemed like a decent investment with recurring revenue and multiple shots on goal most of which have now fallen by the wayside. Luckily the pretty decent revenue stream will be coming in for a few more years but its dwindling so while there is a way out it needs to happen quickly. So shareholders have a choice of doing nothing and hoping for the best or convincing the company to make changes.

While a different CEO can't make Enanta's compounds better, a different CEO can steer the direction of the company for the better and possibly do it faster for the 200M spent annually. Perhaps Enanta should have made a switch to immunology a lot sooner rather than relying solely on ID's like RSV and HBV which aren't too easy to design trials for. Achillion transitioned to complement in 2016 and did so quite rapidly. I think Enanta has made the correct decision to transition to being an immunology company and I think the KIT and STAT6 compounds could transform the company. I think this transition only happened after they hired Dr Kieffer. However there is competition and the company is spending money so execution is key.

What I think Jay Luly lacks is a vision for the company and the ability to execute and not interest in the job. Anyhow this is just my opinion and I respect the opinion of others. Best of luck with the investment!