Soon we'll have Acuity to kick around as a public company. It and Froptix (whoever they are) are being folded into the shell of Exegenics (EXEG). This would increase the number of publicly traded plays on RNAi therapeutics (on American exchanges) to . . . let's see . . . ALNY, RNAI --nope, that was munched by Merck, CYTR --nope, they inlicensed that non-RNAi ALS drug as their lead . . . to 2.5. I'm considering CYTR, EXEG, and NSTK as halves due to lack of purity as RNAi plays. I don't think Froptix' preclinical stuff (which is all they've got) are RNAi related, just eye-related, but frankly, I can't find much info about Froptix. OTOH, the new outfit, to be called Opko, will have an RNAi drug as its lead compound, even if it's not going to compete well against the MABs, so maybe a total of two half & two whole companies in the publicly traded American RNAi space.
Actually, Opko is taking the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach; they are going to PIII with, not against, Lucentis (to whit, as maintenance therapy). I actually guessed at this a while back:
investorshub.com
Wish all my guesses were that good.
Anyhow, EXEG has already increased substantially on the news, largely because of the backing of Philip Frost, the founder of IVAX who seems to have a flair for this kind of thing. He makes Lindsay Rosenwald look like chopped liver.
Don't go to the Exegenics website yet. Your computer might catch something nasty. Get info from the Acuity site for now.
We might get another RNAi play to trade soon, in Quark Biotech, which has filed for an IPO. Quarks have no established relevance to biotech. I guess all the good names have been taken.
Cheers, Tuck |
