Either way they are very good at promoting their work, which is...

Either way they are very good at promoting their work, which is half the battle. I'm very excited by their story with the cholesterol lowering drug and potential to either bring it to market or the value it has for big pharma companies.

Today I did some digging on one of the two comparative drugs, Repatha, which is made by Amgen in California, a US$147 billion company and the drug is one of their best sellers. Their latest figures have an increase in revenue of 62% just from Repatha or US$229M for the first quarter this year, over the same period in 2019, which equates to US$916M p.a (A$1.3B p.a.). From the Amgen finance report:

Repatha sales increased 62% driven by 98% volume growth, offset partially by lower net selling price. Repatha's net selling price was impacted by the removal of our original list price option to improve patient affordability, especially for Medicare patients.

It seems Amgen were making so much money they reduced the cost of the drug from US$14K p.a. per patient to $5.8K p.a., and still ended up making 62% more revenue. The revenue was split evenly between the US and the ROTW.

The value of Repatha to Amgen would be a significant portion of their MC, maybe somewhere in the ballpark of US$20 billion (A$28.6B), so if little Nyrada could develop a something similar and in an easier oral form (rather than injections) then the value would be mind blowing. Very big numbers for a company with a MC of A$12M. It also begs the question what would a company like Amgen pay for a new drug like this?

When you look at those numbers, you see where the main game is. I think if Nyrada were listed on the NASDAQ we would have seen a very different reaction this week and the SP might now be well over a $1 (or $5). Unfortunately on the ASX we seem to be more focused on mining shares or these days, BNPL.