My amev thoughts:
$56M market cap, $51M in cash, roughly $35M in projected cash at year end 03.
3 medi compounds "supposed" to be in the clinic this year; vitaxin is in the clinic oncology and RA, synagis successor numax 3Q IND, IL-4 2H. Majority of medi's clinical pipeline will have a amev connection. Amev is well aware they can't count on medimmune or any partner to go as fast as amev would like or at all for that matter.
Recent jv deals are the ones to look at:
Multi product deal with Lilly, 2 antibodies, one non antibody protein therapeutic. Compounds not disclosed, I can guess xigris, maybe reopro?
Deal with Chiron, my guess betaseron.
Deal with Centocor. Reopro?
Take home's on partners. They try hard to make sure any partner compound they agree to optimize will be a priority for the partner. Impossible to do of course since partners strategies change, key personnel drivers change and competitive landscapes change, but they do put thought into who they partner with and what compounds they'll agree to optimize. I'd put no value into their early partnerships, bmy, sgen etc.
Internal disclosed compounds rituxan and remicade. Committed to taking them into the clinic internally. Want to show they can do it, get mfg experience and move along the learning curve. Will partner if decent terms come along. Ideal imo, is back to the innovators. Question is how great a magnitude improvement do they need? These are damned good drugs, with what, $3B in 2002 sales and at least $20B in market caps generated by rituxan and remicade (idph, dna, jnj)? Potency, reduced mfg cost, much smaller effective doses and side effects, vastly decreased infusion times, great durability of action. Maybe develop as injectables, broaden the market potentials.
Will disclose a 3rd internal compound later this year, likely to be another big name compound.
Goal for remicade IND this year. Rituxan probably a 2004 goal.
The whole theme here is they can optimize antibodies and proteins in a rational, concise and timely fashion. Chiron deal, 11 months deal signing to delivering optimized candidate, LLY, first mab 10 months deal to delivery, LLY, mab 2, 13 months deal to delivery. So it's a low risk approach to development. Their partnered programs are probably a "name" list of big selling products but their hands are tied in terms of disclosure.
Challenge will be can they make timely progress with internal programs? Will a medimmune pull through and have 3 amev derived compounds in the clinic this year? Will numax hit the clinic and whip through the clinic? Will the market cap increase so they can fund the company in a minimally dilutive fashion. I think this is the key to a huge stock, progress in a non-dilutive manner. In a worst case scenario they can stop internal work, work exclusively for partners until the markets credit the company with a higher share price. So its a real buy and hold and see what happens kind of stock. Big upside potential, hopefully the downside is capped with partnered programs with a real kicker in the internal programs.
I'm sitting on a position very patiently. Will wait this thing out, unless funding becomes problematic. They seem like a good group, honest and calculating, great list of partners. Will have to wait and see.
How's that Stefaan? :-) |
