Many think the $500M up front Amgen paid to get Biovex was a great deal, it wasn't.
1) Biovex was a venture led company and NOT trading publicly. At the time of the sale, Biovex Venture funds were having to put up more cash to support the planned phase III trials, BUT a little thing called the Global financial crisis was happening, and Venture funds were hurting, unable to take their companies public to get their payouts. So they took the $500M and hoped for $500M more on milestones.
TODAY is much different, BIOTECH in USA has been on a tear, raising cash and going public on NASDAQ is much easier for Biotechs, and Biotech valuations have sky rocketed as LARGE PHARMA IS ON A BUYING SPREE, NEEDING TO FILL UP THEIR RAPIDLY DIMINISHING PIPELINES DUE TO PATENTS LAPSING ON THEIR BIG MONEY MAKING DRUGS! (sorry for the capitalization, trying to make a point here).
2) Biovex Virus is restricted in its use to intralesional, CAVATAK has potential in other routes of administration… BUT most importantly, CAVATAK in theory should work on any tumor that expresses ICAM-1. There are many! The proof of concept in melanoma, now seems to be verified in Bladder cancer.
3) CAVATAK has the added benefit of knowing what tumours it should work in and should not work in. If the tumor expresses ICAM-1 it has the potential of working. So in theory you can "personalize" the treatment, you can't do this with T-Vec!
Cavatak is a far superior Oncolytic for many reasons. The potential is now finally being demonstrated.
There are a lot of Biotechs on NASDAQ in the $200-$300M US Market cap range, that do not have the potential that CAVATAK has recently demonstrated.
As a NASDAQ listed stock, I suspect Viralytics would have a Market cap in the $200M US to $250M US range right now…. after all these announcements. The potential use in multiple tumor types, make it far better than T-Vec, and I suspect in the end its value to a Large Pharma will be greater than T-Vec was as well.
VLA Price at posting:
85.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
