Jeffries presentation, worth a listen
I am surprised there wasn't been more discussion about the Jeffries presentation over on Yahoo. I felt Dan did a great job of explaining the potential Curis has for current and new investors. Some snipets
He said at around the 1:00 minute mark that just for Erivedge, "it represents substantial growth upside for Curis investors"
At the 3:20 mark he summarizes the investment thesis as "We have a deep pipeline, with multiple milestones and value inflection points lined up for the next 6, 12 and 18 months. Erivedge in and of itself represents a very attractive growth potential for our shareholders...."
At 4:20 "Roche has publicly stated that for the label we currently have they expect that 1.5% of all bcc cases, approximately 30,000 cases in the US alone annually, and in the operable, the suboptimal setting where surgery isn't appropriate, another 2% of the total to be used in combination with surgery, will comprise another 40,000 patients...."
At 6:30 he discusses the Gorlin's syndrome patients which would add another 4-5,000 patients.
At 10:00 he discusses again the market opportunity where it is "clearly over a Billion dollar opportunity for Roche where Curis will receive a 5% starting royalty up to a high single digit royalty and that ramping up is very rational and it hits the highest royalty well before we hit a Billion in sales annually.. Later this year expect EU approval which will trigger another milestone plus expanded market opportunity as well as Australia, Canada and Switzerland."
At 13:00 he summarizes the operable trial and reiterates that with the data released recently "42% of patients had complete histological clearance and a full 96% had either complete clearance or a partial response which bodes extremely well for it to be used in the neo adjuvant setting going forward"
At 14:15 he discusses the trials that were presented at ASCO where there "was nothing overwhelming and the good news is there was nothing negative and we did see some signals as there was an enhancement of stable disease in Chondrosarcoma by a couple of months and then the pancreatic trial in combination with Gemcitabine there was an increase in PFS by 2 months, a little over 2 months. I will caution that while this fits with what we expect mechanistically but these are still intermittant data it is not complete and the numbers are not robust enough to draw any conclusions but we still remain optimistic that a signal will emerge with a number of trials pending in the ligand driven mechanism trials..."
At 16:45 "...as an overview, just the mutation driven cancer presents an very significant growth and value proposition for our shareholders. Just the advanced bcc population in the US alone represents approximately 30,000 patients and even if we penetrate just 50% of that market represents a significant market potential plus the possiblility of other markets...."
At 17:45 he begins discussing 101. Oral formulation is anticipated for filing IND in Q3 of 2012.
At 23:39 he discusses the head and neck trial "where the first 3 patients treated with a sub optimal dose 2 had complete response and 1 had a partial response. He said it is too early to make any judgements because you could get burned but anectodally they are encouraged and look forward to giving updates as they become available. They expect to complete the phase 1 dose escalation by end of year."
At the end he summarizes that the IV formulation represents a viable commercial opportunity for 101 in head and neck cancer as evidenced by the early results even if they are not successful with the oral formulation. He also reiterated "just from Erivedge, milestones and royalties ramping up the business model has been substantially de-risked .. with tremendous upside over the next 6, 12, and 18 months for our shareholders."
While I attempted to be 100% accurate in the above, I would recommend all take the 1/2 hour to listen to the conference. As everyone who knows my posts, I am unbelievably bullish on the potential of Curis in the near and long term.
My additional thoughts and comments:
Just for grins and giggles, my calculation based on the $7,500 monthly price for Erivedge, for every 10,000 patients on drug annually it will translate into over $60 million in royalties annually to Curis at a 7% average royalty rate. This for a company that has a cash burn rate of $20-25 million per Dan during the presentation. Just in the approved setting, we will be extremely profitable if they can capture 1/3 of the market in the US alone under the current approval. Add in Gorlin's patients and the potential for operable, and the market grows significanlty. Best of all that is the US market alone. I would guess the rest of the world could double almost the size of the market potential. Throw in other cancer indications and the question becomes:
How high is too high for the stock price of Curis to get to? GLTA.
AI
