"Designed to work as a combination therapy with major existing...

"Designed to work as a combination therapy with major existing drugs Lucentis and Eylea, both of which are coming off-patent. This is critical - it means that the owners of these drugs are incentivised to compete for a deal
- Verylarge market. >US$10bn sales for existing treatments Lucentis, Eylea, Avastin. OPT-302 would piggy-back on Lucentis (US$3.7bn) or Eylea (US$6.6bn). Note that OPT-302 would be mostly additive to these sales, it would not replace them directly. i.e. don't assume potential sales are US$10bn, because they're not"

Here is an alternative which just came to me; since Lucentis and Eylea are coming off patent, what would stop Opthea working with a generics manufacturer to market their own combo treatment? If the value of those single treatments drops after they come off patent then the real value is obviously in the OPT-302 combination. If none of these pharmas recognize that sufficiently, then that generic + OPT-302 combo treatment would have its own independent valuation if Opthea went for it alone. Of course, its not as simple as that given Opthea has no marketing/sales teams or any relationships with key customers.

If not that scenario, how about another pharma MNC which isn't quite as strong in this space but has the sales/marketing muscle to make it a viable option. So they create the combo with Opthea as a partner. I just wonder whether that scenario stack up better from a DCF perspective for a new player rather than an existing player which has to decide between cannibalising sales with the combo treatment vs being stuck with a lower efficacy drug and reduced revenue.