RespireRx Pharmaceuticals Inc (RSPI)

[neuroinv]

Here's a good news/ bad news post, starting with the latter:
1) BP is weirdly paralyzed, which means they'd prefer to promise higher royalties later, rather than giving better upfronts and milestones. Your premise is more rational, but they're not. I have a micro-window into the Pharma macro environment: My neuro publishing business is 85% Pharma subscriptions (15% funds and VCs, and they aren't paying their bills). November looks like it will go into the books as the worst month since I started the monthly publication back in June 1995. It's as if they've all been told to stop writing checks to anyone. Even when the freeze lifts, I do not think that the upfronts will be as good as they would have been six months ago--but they will be good enough to, as you say, allow Cortex to then 'bootstrap its way forward.'
2) This too shall pass--and there are some pharmas that will realize that this is self-defeating sooner than others. And in that context, you are absolutely right: Cortex is, in spite of its cash position and share price, in far better condition than many of its brethren. Phase IIa POC is the benchmark for a lot of licensees, Cortex has it in RD and ADHD, and should be able to get it for sleep apnea pretty quickly.
3) I want to append something regarding the BP valuation discussion. A couple companies did say that they wanted to wait for small companies to revise their sense of expectations based on their new share price. But a Pfizer exec made an interesting comment--that they didnt really care about the share price of an acquisition: they would look at the down-the-road value of the pipeline, the revenues it could generate, as the determinant of an acquisitions value now. So there is not an across-the-board Pharma focus on share prices as establishing value.

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