Locking in an early pharma deal only benefits companies which...

Locking in an early pharma deal only benefits companies which are worried about their R&D risk, and they pay a larger risk premium to the licensee accordingly. By electing to take on all the R&D risk themselves (all of their actions to date suggest this is the strategy), I think they are setting themselves up for a distribution only deal with royalties greater than 50%+. The previous analyst reports have all assumed 15-20% royalties as a conservative estimate. Royalties are such a big chunk of the pie that the difference between 50% and 15% is going to have an almost linear impact on future revenues and in turn the SP.

It's an extra gamble but given their unique risk/reward situation, it's definitely a +EV move if big pharma are only willing to offer a deal based on the industry average.