I just went back over the NEU price jump time frame ($1.20 to $15 in 18 months), so thats 12x, and $1.60 to $15 in 15 months. If you look at their trigger it was when 3 phase 2 trials were allowed, and 2/ when a phase 3 trial started.
TB, I don’t agree with your identification of the “triggers” for NEU’s rise in share price.
There’s perhaps an argument for commencement of Phase 3 being a price trigger. The share price doubled from $1.20 -$2.40 from a couple of months prior to a couple of months after Phase 3 commencement but was then back at ~ $1.20 a full 18 months later, which was roughly 6 months before results were to be announced.
And the commencement of 3 Phase 2 studies in late June to early July 2022? It actually did almost nothing to the share price.
It was Phase 3 success in December 2021 and NDA submission in mid to late July 2022 which were key share price triggers, with another large surge occurring post FDA approval in March, 2023. In this 15 month period the share price rose from ~$4 to $14. It’s worth noting that the share price then retraced to ~$10 but rose back to $14+ on the announcement of exceptional early sales.
As you pointed out, NEU licensed out its lead asset and that applies a brake to potential share price growth. But if you take OPT as an example of an Australian biotech which decided to go it alone and take on Phase 3 itself, the share price fell 25% during the lead-in to Phase 3 and since then has fallen from $9.80 to as low as $1.60. Dilutory capital raises and other funding deals have almost brought the company to its knees and more funds are still required prior to any approval. It's not that the asset is a "dog". For those not familiar with OPT, theirs is a novel, differentiated drug that comes with really solid data and is targeting a very large market (AMD). It's just that the path to market is so long and so expensive.
There’s no perfect answer but, for a smaller Aussie biotech wishing to go it alone, orphan drugs aimed at serious unmet needs with fewer, smaller and faster clinical trials would seem to be the way to go. That reduces time to market and costs considerably. Then if you can complete early development of multiple programs, derisked as much as possible at pre-clinical stage, you can perhaps keep one or two programs to develop yourself and forge quality license deals forsome of your other assets to fund progress.
This seems to be PYC’s strategy and I think it’s the right one!
PYC Price at posting:
8.2¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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