Did a little more research on DISC and found something interesting which makes the valuation difference with CUV all the more absurd. Clinuvel is only commercialised in EPP for now, and the leading drug candidate for Disc is targeting EPP, so it's a direct apples/apples comparison - although Clinuvel is much closer to expanding to the huge Vitiligo market than Disc is to progressing with anything so has nearer term greater potential. From what I read, even if Disc is successful in many years in entering the EPP market they will have to pay royalties to the company they purchased the trial molecule from and they will also potentially be making very significant milestone payments of tens (maybe hundreds) of millions of dollars! Clinuvel is vertically integrated and none of this is an issue for investors where profits are shared amongst just 50 Million shares.
So why are Disc much more successful in attracting investor interest despite the prospect of the company just losing money for many years to come, and with no guarantee they will ever get an FDA approval which would obviously be catastrophic for Disc? And even if Disc are successful they have to share any future profits. Clinuvel, well they have a monopoly in EPP for years to come, and if successful with Vitiligo they could likely become the standard of care for a disease that has worldwide incidence approximately 1% of the human race.
Loss making Disc makes significant losses, which is ok for this stage, but they may never even get that approval and they certainly don't make great profits like money-printing CUV yetthey are valued at ~ $2.6 Billion AUD while CUV languishes at about 0.67 Billion (with $175M cash). Risk/reward is curious with Disc valued entirely on hope and CUV with no future cash flow valuation for Vitiligo or anything else. Amazingly Disc should probably raise a bit of funding and offer cash/shares to take over CUV - CUV already monopolise the market DISC is seeking to enter with their lead drug candidate and CUV are already profitable - seems like good business sense and risk management rather than pouring money down the drain with no guarantee of success in 4-5 years time. It is really an absurd situation when the hopeful in Disc has a valuation ~4 times higherthan the commercialised, highly profitable FDA, EMA approved market monopoliser in CUV which also has a Phase 3 running(the phase III clinical trial underway for the blockbuster indication Vitiligowith their ALREADY FDA approved and safe drug) - Disc certainly doesn't have that but a takeover would give it to them along with Stroke, VP, XP etc. This seems to be a good reason to list on the NASDAQ where Disc is listed and in hindsight CUV should have done this several years ago in my opinion.
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