Appreciate the dissertation on low-risk investing Adam and I'm sure it's an extremely prudent and sensible strategy, however, each individual investor has a different perspective as regards risk, and whilst your conservative approach may conserve and potentially even marginally outperform the general market, surely a balanced portfolio would contain some higher beta opportunities. You rightly place a great deal on "intrinsic value", however, those arguments are rather meaningless when applied to a company such as MSB, which whether you "buy" the story or not, has appeal to those with a measured tolerance for risk, bearing in mind the potential for significant returns on just what we know about MSB's various trials to date.
To most people, management is THE most important criteria when considering investment and leaving Silviu aside for the moment, it is fascinating to me that industry titans such as Bob Burns, ex CEO of Roche and Jon Symonds, ex CEO of Novartis are now part of the executive team. Dr Monica Luchi, ex Incyte is another addition to the team and it is worth bearing in mind that Dr Luchi was head of the Inflammatory Disease division at Incyte which successfully developed Jakafi, a drug used for the treatment of mylefibrosis and which was the driver in sending Incyte's mkt cap from $1bn to $8bn. She now heads MSB's inflammatory diseases group which includes GvHD, Crohns and rheumatoid arthritis. Her past experience will be invaluable in pushing the commercialisation prospects of the GvHD product in Japan, and in also clearing the regulatory provided by the FDA for US commercialisation of the product. You could argue that GvHD is a small market with maybe 4000 cases annually but at $200K a treatment, and in the absence of alternatives, it gives a small idea as to the potential for MSB. (By the way, $200k a pop is not a ridiculous sum for a life-saving drug.)
I could go on to mention the myriad other opportunities opening up for MSB but the big one for the company one the one which has been most pooh-poohed by an ex regional NZ MD, now engaged in the banking sector, is congestive heart failure, in partnership with Teva. The 1730 patient Phase 3 trial for class 2 & 3 heart patients is still ongoing. Alongside this is a 120 patient program for class 4 patients (the sickest of the lot!) conducted by the National Insitute of Health, (NIH) a completely independent body. This trial is being conducted of course, after the 60 patient trial, also funded by the NIH, which demonstrated extremely positive results of mortality vs controls.
I am simply trying to show that trying to put a value on MSB is a futile task at present but that the risk/reward profile is exceptionally attractive to a simple punter like me.
My thoughts only.
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