It is far, far more rare and difficult to have a very successful drug moving toward approval that has the potential to be an agnostic cancer platform than to have a business generating large sums of cash from the sale of mediocre drugs.
That is the reality. Now imagine if, Merck or another checkpoint inhibitor company suddenly acquired a drug that catapulted their drug to taking a very deadly population of patients afflicted with cancers for which their drug had no efficacy to having what started to look like a potential cure rate of anything from 40-50%, or maybe even more with other additional combinations to address the lagging population? This is an incredible opportunity for the right company, but no doubt cell therapies have been an area yet to otherwise be proven and fraught with risks, like production costs.
But that opportunity is a very difficult and rare thing to discover or find in any market, but especially in this market. It’s worth a lot of money. But sometimes those who would be best positioned to pay that sum are extremely cautious, to their detriment and have worries or simply want to wait and wait. We saw what happened with Merck when they made a second lower offer and waited on Seagen. Very cautious of them. Didn’t pan out to play it the way they played it.
The reality is, whatever the circumstance today, it is extremely dynamic and can turn on a dime. I would rather be in than out. The challenge is of course timing. I have watched companies with pending drugs double and triple in recent weeks. I’d have loved to have taken proceeds from a run to $3 or $5 and put some money in over there. It’s frustrating, no doubt.
But the reality is, there are more opportunities all the time. It sucks to wait, and that’s why big buyers with cash think they have an advantage. But that is a flawed way to think. The longer they wait to pull the triggers on deals, the more likely they are to miss out on a deal because a rival was bolder and hungrier.
We’ll see. But I am optimistic when I see these other deals.
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