There's a famous quote attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th Century British Prime Minister, which I really like: 'Watch the calendar, not the clock'. Recently I went searching for whether or not old Dizzy actually said or wrote these words, and wasn't able to establish that he did, so if anyone knows the true provenance of the quote, please get in touch. Nonetheless, I want to assert in this Shareholder Message, with Disraeli or whoever, that it's important for Prima shareholders to Watch the Calendar, not the Clock.
What the quote means is that good things will generally take time, and therefore one should measure one's progress in months and years rather than hours and minutes. That's as true in the development of new technologies as in any other field of endeavour. Take xerography - the science of making photocopies - for a good example. The American inventor Chester Carlson (1906-1968) first showed that it was possible to create photocopies using positively charged selenium in 1938. However it wasn't until the late 1950s that this invention became a lucrative commercial reality for Xerox, the ultimate licensee of Carlson's intellectual property.
Now, the good news is that process of creating value out of new technologies has gotten much faster since Chet Carlson's day, in large measure because the rate of technological change has itself been getting faster. That's why it only took around five years for Mark Zuckerberg to move Facebook from a college dorm-room programming exercise through to a billion dollar company, and a similar length of time for Larry Page and Sergei Brin to change the world through Google. And the same speeding up of development progress is true of biotech as of information technology. It only took around five years, for example, for Alexion Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq ALXN) to create its first blockbuster drug, a monoclonal antibody drug called Soliris which gained FDA approval in 2007. Alexion today is a US$39bn company.
The quote from Disraeli came into my mind when I noted that the Nasdaq Biotech Index had dropped 19% between 20 July and 24 August before recovering, and later when a shareholder emailed with an important and timely admonition. Let me quote this shareholder directly:
'Hi Stuart, Thanks for your informative correspondence. There is just one issue that I would like you to remind yourself and the board and that is that we (the long suffering supporters of the company - 12 years for me next month) invested for two reasons. One for the hope of an effective monoclonal solution to cancer impaired cells and two some profit for our old age'.
Yes, I get that and I agree 100% that that is what our loyal shareholder should get - a better cancer drug (or two, or more than two), and a serious capital gain. I invested my reputational capital in Prima BioMed back in January 2015 because I felt that our company could deliver on those two objectives. The trouble for me is that our shareholder correspondent has waited three US Presidential terms and hasn't seen us deliver yet, whereas I have only been here seven months.
So how do we deliver?
The first part of the plan has already been successfully completed. That involved us acquiring and funding newer generation assets in the cancer immunotherapy space, allowing us to stay ahead of bio-technological change. We achieved this between October 2014 and July 2015 when we acquired Immutep with its LAG-3-based programs and its partnerships with GSK and Novartis.
The next thing we need to do is execute well on the development plans we have for IMP321, the lead compound we acquired with Immutep. Here things are looking good, with a Phase IIb in metastatic breast cancer set to initiate late in 2015 that has received Scientific Advice from the EMA. As we flagged on 7 July 2015, this Phase IIb will take around three years to run but at the end of that time we will have a drug that is potentially - I emphasise the word 'potentially' - close to the finish line.
Finally, we need to do a good job at positioning our company in a competitive capital market. There are multiple listed biotech companies out there, and good cancer immunotherapy companies among them, many of whom have exciting stories to tell. Our aim going forward is to make sure that our company stands out in this crowd and enjoys the re-rating we think we warrant given what has been achieved since October. To that end we will be at the Rodman meeting in New York next month, where we'll be telling our story to US investors, and our IR calendar will remain pretty active after that.
I argue that if we follow this program, our shareholder will ultimately get what he invested for. He might have to follow Disraeli's advice for a bit longer but the timeline looking forward is certainly less than the time he's already been with us. And I want to publicly say to that shareholder and to all of you who have been with us for some long, a big Thank You. You have helped us get this far and we at Prima are working to deliver for you.
Stuart
Stuart Roberts Global Head of Investor Relations Prima BioMed Ltd Direct: +61 2 9276 1224 Mobile: +61 447 247 909 Fax: + 61 2 8569 1880 Email: [email protected]
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