relenza royalty tipping contest, page-37

Hi cgt

If my gut feel is correct then we could expect to see some approvals in that area pretty soon. The FDA actually does try to tick all the boxes, even in an emergency.

Relenza stockpiles? We should think back to bird flu, just the threat of an outbreak caused governments to stockpile anti-virals of which Relenza won a small portion. Tamiflu was preferred and didn't have the resistance issues they have now. Luckily the drug still works on Swine Flu but if seasonal resistance is anything to go by it's just a matter of time before they lose effect. This will be the main reason governments move to Relenza, and in future Laninamivir... to diversify their stockpiles.

Will governments continue to stockpile? I think so, and even in greater numbers. There will be an ongoing threat that swine flu will mutate, merge with bird flu or develop resistance to tamiflu... stockpiles are the only way to combat a severe outbreak with high mortality... vaccines are too slow, and you just cannot rely on large pharma's production capacity as we have seen. What's the real cost of a stockpile? Say $25 per relenza dose, over a 6 year period and assume storage costs add 10%, then it's ~$5 per person p.a... big deal. It's a cheap insurance policy to provide your citizens. We're very lucky this strain had low mortality, I very much doubt the world had enough anti-virals to combat a "spanish flu" scenario... once ventilators in hospitals get filled then people start dying in large numbers.

The volatile price really makes you ask all the right questions... is the stock worth the market cap? To me, and from the research I've done my opinion is that the comapny should list on the Nasdaq to realise the value... The Oz market simply struggles to value biotechs.