I’m also in the partnership first camp. I don’t think there’s really a question that a deal is forthcoming; with about a dozen employees, and this close to the marketing approval stage, it seems unlikely that Northwest Bio will begin commercialization on their own. The question is whether it’s a partnership, multiple partnerships, or a buyout.
There are many ways to value an asset, platform, or company, and both sides of the deal will have their own financial analysts who will use various methods and assumptions to calculate the value of the asset to show why it’s worth what they say. (depending on the assumptions used in their models, they can make the final number come up to whatever number they desire) Big Pharma would likely attempt to value it in comparison to the previous CAR-T cell therapy companies and highlight that there are currently no revenues, high start-up commercialization and marketing costs, and give little value to the undeveloped pipeline (DCVax-Direct), while Northwest Bio will highlight that DCVax is a platform which may treat all solid tumor cancers both operable and inoperable, (and potentially other immunological diseases) has a patented low-cost automated manufacturing process, and has synergistic combination attributes with a multitude of other agents.
Right now at this stage though, I wonder if a Big Pharma company will be prepared to make an offer that Linda Powers and Les Goldman would find acceptable for a platform that one day could be worth hundreds of billions, but so far has only proven efficacy in one phase III trial for brain cancer. So at this stage, a partnership rather than a buyout seems to make more sense until the broader applications to other solid tumor cancers and DCVax-Direct can be proven, which would greatly increase the value, but also lower the risk for an acquirer.
One caveat though: if there are multiple BP’s that understand the potential value of the platform and covet this type of asset, and are willing to take the risk, then this could end up in a bidding war, and then all bets are off, and there could be some sky-high valuations.
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