Angelo, Good topic, buyout. Post-approval, there will be some natural price for NWBO based on DCVax championing GBM. That would be a success point for most biotech companies. At that price, a buyout offer could add a 50% premium on top of that “healthy” price. I can see the logic there.
However, I view selling at that stage like selling the internet in 1995 because it’s a good tool for “email”. The many years being invested includes the perspective that we have something bigger with the DCVax Platform.
Negotiate a buyout price (includes that 50% premium), and it might take 4-5 months to close. But what if there are multiple near-term or 1-year catalysts that can easily double or triple the valuations.
- Given: GBM approval alone will give an $X valuation (includes fixed overhead costs)
- Approval validates the DCVax platform and streamlines for regulatory. Subsequent approvals in other cancers will become a matter of “when”, not “if”.
- A “low hanging fruit” is expansion into grade 3 brain tumors. It could double the addressable market immediately (by definition grade 3 is larger than GBM, maybe 2X)
- Unicorn company thesis: DCVax platform is tumor and stage agnostic. Lung, breast, prostate, and colon cancers each can have larger market size than GBM.
- Any expansion into the above, utilizing the same infrastructure (Sawston, Flaskworks), will have a “profit margin” multiplier effect” (adds variable COGS, but not fixed overhead costs).
A buyer would heavily discount these “future” expansions to protect their upside potential. That would leave too much on the table IMPO. They would want to buy the “email” before the world realizes it’s the internet.
In my view, the 2 years post-approval is a critical holding period. A 50% premium over a "healthy" price would jeopardize a 500% increase opportunity, for example.
Bullish