Replies to post #85619 on Biotech Values

[mcbio]

Re: ARYX target

Shot up towards the EOD on higher than normal volume. I find it a bit strange that they will discuss licensing efforts on 11/4 when they also stated the following on thursday

"With that said, as we move closer to completing the partnering process and negotiating a final agreement, we will be providing fewer details about where we stand in order to achieve the best possible result with those companies competing for the compound.”"

They're probably just going to rehash what was said in the PR. I wouldn't infer from this that they're going to announce a partner at the conference on 11/4.

Nevertheless assuming they ensure a deal similar to what CRME got what are your expectations for a marketcap? CRME is probably the best comparison but since CRME has an IV I'm not sure whether value is attributed to that or not. CRME is currently about 250 million but if the weakness in the biotech sector abates may approach 300M. ARYX may at least reach half of that. I'm assuming Tercarfarin is not going to be given too much value if at all. 7505 is probably a wild card.

I still don't assume any value at all for tecarfarin. Maybe they'll surprise and get a deal done for it eventually but I'm not assigning anything at all to it. CRME is, I think, a good comparison to ARYX for market cap purposes. And they got $60 million I believe up-front for vernakalant. That is just under the entire market cap of ARYX at the moment and ARYX isn't effectively a one-drug shop, as CRME is. If ARYX gets anywhere near what CRME got up-front (and I'm not banking on that), I would expect we would be looking at a $200 million market cap or more for the stock. I'm betting ARYX will get a lot less than that but it will still be quite material for the company. Even if it's $20-$30 million up-front, I think we're still looking at somewhere between a $150-$200 million market cap, which is roughly 3x current price. All JMHO.

[iwfal]

ARYX - Buriodarone:

Have done some of the DD to compare it to existing treatments and I would suggest that Budiodarone has two significant hurdles:

1) It still shows hints of many of the toxicities seen for Amiodarone - more in fact than Dronedarone (another Amiodarone redo - but with lesser efficacy than Amiodarone). (Note the word 'hints' because from the data released so far it is hard to tell anything other than that it probably still has some kind of tox for thyroid and liver - both of which are significant for Amiodarone, although I can't, for instance, find median blood data for such Amiodarone SAEs) In contrast Vernakalant(sp?) appears to have fewer side effects.

2) The endpoint they used in the ph ii is technically really cool because it offers stat sig on a very small trial. But it is a very non-standard endpoint. I could find only one other drug trial that used a similar endpoint (Azilimide - which obtained a 40% reduction in burden, albeit with a substantially different patient population. And note that Azilimide is probably one of the pack (i.e. less efficacious than Amiodarone) - but it offers a weak comparison)) In contrast Vernakalant(sp?) used a much more traditional endpoint which is more comparable and appears to be competitive with Amiodarone in efficacy (based upon median times to return of AF).

All total I'd expect ARYX to get substantially less then CRME did. Maybe 1/2? But I'll acknowledge large uncertainty bounds.

Comments welcome.