The Novartis agreement had nothing to do with Rexlemestrocel-L...

The Novartis agreement had nothing to do with Rexlemestrocel-L or the CHF or CLBP indications and these were the reasons I invested in Mesoblast in the first place, so I will take my chances with what unfolds with these two indications especially with the results to date on both of these phase 3 trials regardless of missing their PE's


You seem to be suggesting that Novartis looked at everything in the Mesoblast stable and walked away from it all as there was 'no money to be made' - I don't believe that is the case and that is why the agreement did not include the two blockbuster indications of CLBP and CHF using Rexlemestrocel-L.


I did at one stage think Novartis may be interested in the Rexlemestrocel-L for CHF given the synergies with Entresto but we received no indication from the company that they were looking at it and I believe there would be others ahead of the queue that have been in discussions with Mesoblast about the CHF indication prior to Novartis signing the ARDS agreement in November 2020 and prior to the results even being published.


COVID-19 ARDS was an opportunistic (and smart IMO) move by Mesoblast management that they capitalised upon and got the NIH to pay ~$50m USD funding to run the trial at the height of the pandemic and it wasn't even heard of back when I invested a few years ago (obviously) ....


That said, you are correct in that Novartis clearly did not like the data on this indication (probably based upon >65yo data, which is the age group that has the highest death rate from ARDS itself) and thought it wasn't worthy of progressing due to the cost / benefit analysis; what Mesoblast manages to do with COVID-19 ARDS from here will be interesting as the amount of people still dying of COVID-19 ARDS is still far too high IMO .....


Will Mesoblast get funding from the NIH or a new partner to run another trial ? If they do IMO it will demonstrate that Novartis was only interested in ARDS itself and not COVID-19 ARDS .... time will tell but if the NIH or another partner dip into their pockets to run an additional costly phase 3 COVID-19 ARDS trial you would have to think they would be basing that decision on the results and data from the first phase 3 trial instead of just wishful thinking ??

As always in biotech investing - time will tell



GLTAH