Seeking Alpha article, interresting comments followed.
I liked reading the 4 points from hautefearbrandnewgod :
1. likelihood of approval-- ONCS basing its treatment on the low hanging fruit of previously well-established cytokines should tell you that the likelihood is rather high. We're not using here some new drug with a mysterious mechanism of action. We're using IL-12 via electroporation; IL-12 has been a well established agent for a while now and its efficacy has been a fact. the only problems with it in the past have been that systemic application lead to bad side effects. Enter in ONCS electroporation and those side effects are eliminated, while still keep its well known efficacy. If this is not a safe FDA bet idk what is.
Also, Immunopulse's star potential lies in its versatility and ability to be used in combos. The anti-pd-1 immunopulse pre-clinical study yeilded 100% efficacy in 100% of subjects, and given that Immunopulse is basically converting non-immogenic tumors into immunogenic responders (thus making the subjects responsive to these highly efficacious checkpoint inhibitors), we can see why.
Dr. Pierce in his interview with Brian explains this rather well. So really, with regard to your "likelihood of approval" criteria, i would think you'd be hard pressed to find a safer FDA bet.
2. Probability of partnership/buyout/- for the very reason delineated above, companies with anti-pd-1 approvals would find Immunopulse an extremely appealing tech; Punit has stated that we're looking for such a partner and I would expect we won't have to wait til 2015 for such an announcement. As to a buyout, I think this is also a likely scenario, though one further down the road.
3. Potential peak sales-- Being orphan indication and thus the only treatment out there, the MCC treatment alone could ultimately support a billion dollar market cap. This is without even considering Melanoma, which we could reasonably expect to bring in an additional 300-400M in rev. CONSERVATIVELY. I'm using here your standard of CURRENT trials only, and have gone a step further as to not include CutaneousCell.
4. Balance Sheet- here we might have a factor you might think would not add much to the valuation given that cash is in around 15M with total assets at 17Mil. However, a more important factor than balance sheet is the burn rate, and the fact that it is so low means that we have a rather long dilution-free runway. I warned INO investors in the previous ONCS article to not be so comfortable with INO's balance sheet, given its very high burn rate, and that warning was in turn validated with todays Public offering. So its not "cash on hand" prima facie that matters as much as cash on hand in conjunction with burn rate, and here ONCS passes with flying colors.
