"So I would suggest they (TEVA) don't HAVE to proceed." Thanks...

"So I would suggest they (TEVA) don't HAVE to proceed."

Thanks for that.

I was operating on the basis of that one of the company's most strident enthusiasts, namely the Bell Potter analyst, would have been fully- and accurtely informed, as per Ango-Roch's post earlier today (Post #14106322).


[Copied below with relevant sentence bolded for ease of reference]



Extract as BP report as follows:-

..."Dated 8 October 2014.
Mesoblast (MSB)
Further affirmation of Teva's commitment
to MSB
Speculative

MSB’s partner Teva rationalises its pipeline:
Teva has decided to rationalise its R&D spend by cutting back 14 clinical projects
(details on 30th Oct call) primarily in oncology and women’s health. Teva will focus on
its two core therapeutic disease areas - Respiratory and CNS. With this move, Teva
expects to save more than $550m in R&D costs over the next 3 years, which will be
directed towards its core focus areas and late-stage efforts in other areas.

Key implications for MSB:
We are confident that MSB’s Revascor for Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) is not going
to be a casualty in this latest R&D cut announced by Teva for the following reasons: a)
The cuts are expected to be primarily in oncology and women’s health; b) we believe
that Teva is contractually committed to proceed and fund the CHF Trial up to the
interim analysis points; c) as per the clinicaltrials.gov, 30 sites across US & Canada
are now active, with 12 already recruiting patients into the CHF trial; d) Teva plans to
focus on late stage efforts in other non-core areas; e) Teva expects to launch 30+
products by 2019, expected to generate $4bn in new revenue on a risk-adjusted basis.
Revascor, alone could underpin most of this revenue, which implies that if the interim
analysis data points are positive Teva is unlikely to hand back Revascor to MSB and
with the cost savings from the announced cuts will be able to allocate more funds to
the CHF program and f) Revascor featured as the 11th most valuable R&D project (out
of 20) on the basis of its NPV in an independent analysis by one of the top industry
market research firms. We note that there was no other product from Teva which
featured on that list. In summary, we view the announcement as a reaffirmation of
Teva’s commitment to the partnership with MSB and are confident that the only real
risk of Teva discontinuing the CHF trial will be unsatisfactory clinical data. "...

Please DYOR. (also BP valuation unchanged).