Auto, not sure whether that is meant to be a positive or negative comment, but I'll let it go through to the keeper.
I think there were 6 attendees (I lost count).
3 Biota management represented:
Russ Plumb (Pres), Joe Patti (Exec VP), Peter Azarello (VP Finance)
All were welcoming. Ran out of time at the end, unfortunately, so many questions unable to be asked, but I will try to take these up offline and report on any responses.
Will start here with random points gleaned (I cannot guarantee the accuracy of these points).
- They cannot be sure, but they believe approx ~38% Aussie holders remain. Russ expected that there would be more than this.
- LANI Phase II Trials - Current Southern Hemisphere sites since June - South Africa, Australia & NZ. From Flutrends, Australia showing no signs of flu yet, so unlikely much trial action here. SA is busier and Flu trends are starting to pick up on the North Island of NZ. Northern Hemisphere trials will kick off later in the year as Flu action picks up. They ultimately expect approx 200-220 trial sites (85 in the US, followed by South Africa with 36 sites).
They cannot report on the trial because it is obviously Random Double Blind, but we may get some sort of a heads up (I'm assuming in terms of how enrolments are tracking) around September.
- They did not seem too worried about the LANI competitors
- DS Prophylactic approval in Japan is hoped for by the end of 2013 Calendar year.
- Vapendavir - I'm not sure if I got this right, but perhaps the trial might not have include enough patients with severe lung conditions and therefore, a new Phase 2 trial would be required to assess the efficacy of the drug for these candidates who would be the ones more inclined to need such a treatment. I will take this one offline for some clarification, because I have a number of other questions - please don't take what I have tried to explain as gospel.
Further, another $20-$25 million on a Vapendavir Trial needs to be weighed up against any other potential drug that they might try to purchase. They are looking for a drug to fill the gap of the discontinued HCV Gram Positive product - somewhere between Phase 1 & 2 in the pipeline. They are considering maybe an Antiviral/Respiratory or even Anti-inflammatory product and believe that $20-$25m can be well spent (on an excellent candidate) in finding anything from late clinical to early Phase 2.
They recognise that Aussie holders are scarred historically (my description) and would not look to raise any cash to fund such a product, at least until the Market Cap is much higher and/or if they decide on an acquisition before the stock rerates, it would be funded from the $70m, but in a way that ensures we don't go near running out of cash.
- As already mentioned, they want to try to get the DS LANI ROW split sorted before Phase 2 results, but that is only if DS come to the table. Pity this was not sorted out in the original agreement between DS and Biota all those years ago and even before Inavir went to market - now it is left to RP to clean up. Sounds like RP is going to try to make this happen with a fair royalty for DS (maybe a little more than the Biota Royalty from DS), in recognition of the fact that the DS results might have helped Biota in getting BARDA over the line more than anything that Biota might have done (less) to help get Inavir over the line in Japan.
- They have recently ramped up their direct meetings with potential institutional investors and broker/analysts (I think he said around 15 brokers) and believes this will start to show in volume and SP increases, but obviously, the next serious inflection point surrounds LANI Phase II results - we need a good flu season between now and then!
- I walked away feeling that these guys are far more business savvy than the guys we have had running the show, who it appears have made a number of wrong choices in the past. PC used to stand there telling us why whatever he was doing was so good and why he knew best - in hindsight, he can take credit for wasting time and $'s.
Happy to stand corrected on some of my comments.
BTA Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
