Steriscience, page-101

FA, answering your second question first, my best guess is that cannabis has been driving the share price action, prompted first by the UN’s reclassification of cannabis as a less dangerous drug closely followed by the US House of Reps vote in favour of cannabis decriminalization.

Cannabis stocks have become “hot” again this month, as you can see in multiple ASX cannabis stocks (e.g. AC8, EXL, CPH, ZLD, CAN, CGB). Their market caps range from ~$50 - $200m. With its much lower market cap, AVE would seem a more attractive bet for percentage gains. Just my observations and thoughts – I’m not a trader.

On the matter of Strides, this is something you already asked me in September on this thread.

At the time, you quoted Paul Gavin’s comment in July

"So we have had the discussion with strides on the initial round of products I will say. The lines of communication are still open but it is fair to say we couldn’t come to mutually agreeable terms on the first round of products we sat down and discussed. But lines of communication are still open."

I don’t interpret that as Paul being adamant that there would be no further discussions and note that “the lines of communication are still open” phrase was also used with respect to Terumo.

My thinking remains that AVE would strongly prefer not to do a deal with Strides on injectables, for a number of reasons, but that nailing down an alternative during this year of uncertainty would be exceedingly hard. And even if AVE does manage to receive a better offer, Strides just has to match it.

I’d also observe that it’s full steam ahead with Strides’ injectables venture.

As a reminder, Kumar has a three year plan for injectables. He is building a phased portfolio, beginning with a solid base of 30-40 higher-priced or short-listed generic products.
In September it was announced that development has already started on 20+ quick-to-launch generic products.

Next in line will be 10-15 niche injectables in the lyophilised, liposomal and long acting domains, to be either developed in house or in-licensed. In September, Strides also announced that it had entered into a JV with Brooks for the manufacturing and distribution of lyophilized carbapenems (a class of antibiotics with limited competition). I believe these would form part of the second phase of Strides’ plan.

At the pointy end of Kumar’s strategy are 5-10 “differentiated” products with “significant market opportunity” that use “platform technologies” intended to “solve for clinical, R&D, manufacturing and supply chain challenges”. The intention was to source these products through “partnerships with an R & D company” to “utilize (their) proprietary technology as a route to achieve (these) objectives”. Nothing has been announced yet on this front; hence, I am still watching.