RE:RE:I am a bit bipolarStockman brings up a very good point --and by the way, we likely all have abundant ignorance and limited knowledge on all we talk about. All views are helpful.
The FDA point is a good one and for almost all investments there will be some doubts one needs to analyze or accept. I would add three more data points in how we might want to think of it.
First, we do now have validation that another university research offshoot has raised money around the use of the sortilin receptor. The Univ Gothemburg guys Qwerty posted earlier today. They wrote the paper on sortilin in breast cancer and then raised some venture cap money from 2 firms to start their development process. It looks like they are using a different tack (going for the TNBC tumor stem cells), but it's based on the same cellular principle via SORT1 receptor. So that validates the SORT1 element of the science as being out there and of interest within the industry, albeit at a very small scale so far.
That leads me to point 2, look at the dates of all the papers -- this really is a scientific discovery that is less than 5 years old. To have gone from discovery to what it actually is and does and then to develop something to be received into the market takes a huge amount of time in the lab. This is the first drug looking to attach to SORT1 on tumors that any of us have heard about and it is described that way in the patent (filed in 2016 according to earlier post). As something young, novel and untested, we probably shouldn't expect to see 20 companies chasing it (like TKIs or CAR-T) or find many references. It sounds like UQAM was primed to discover this as they were looking at peptides and ways to get around the BBB and had latched on to SORT1 since it is on neurons. You can see from the date of their research papers they were way ahead of the curve.
Lastly, the pharma industry has totally changed over the last 20 years. Big Pharma is much less likely to spend huge resources of time/money on highly specularive, totally new and unproven science as they used to. That doesn't mean they won't do some of that in areas they have expertise in or understand well or that come out of their labs -- but the advent of DNA being decoded and cheap access to the tools necessary has created an explosion of new targets, molecules, what-have-you. It's totally changed the research and commercialization model to one where there's thousands of smaller companies doing a lot of the primary and secondary research in very specific areas, backed by VC and IPO money, and they can efficiently do the reserach to get to proof of concept or even commercialization. Big Pharma does it in areas they have expertise in but are more than happy to leave the high risk/high reward to some of these and they'll just partner up, buy in or takeover drugs that end up being really well suited to their strategies. They're happy not to see the days of their massive R&D spend not creating much and rather use their market multiples to buyout proven drugs and technologies. They started downsizing R&D 20 years ago when not much was coming from the dollars they spent. So part of what we're seeing is this model in action with THTX doing the primary and secondary reserach in a novel area.
Looking at it that way it isn't quite as odd. There's literally thousands of companies like this, some listed some not, taking one or two ideas and seeing if they can prove value in the lab and go from there.
scarlet1967 wrote: Since that purchase they did bunch of preclinical studies/tests and the results were good could be the other way around so the program came together based on many months or years of working on their science. They send 6 cancer results to the agency and got the fast track designation based on impressive data. The process could easily been ended while ago but thankfully it didn't. I remember some remarks that the company was following Katana's research for a couple of years before they decided to purchase it so it was an educated decision which so far seems to be the right decision.
stockman75 wrote: As I watched the webinar and saw all the impressive pre-clinical results and then after reading all the posts over time from the very knowledgable folks on this message board....
I have concluded I am quite bipolar when it comes to the cancer program. On the one hand it is all quite impressive and seems like there is a high probability there is somehting quite massive in the works.
On the other hand I think to myself how could it be little Thera a small canadian bio-tech could be on to a major advancement in cancer treatment. How could it be Katana sold for next to nothing? How could it be that big pharma did not pick this up? How could it be that it does not get more exposure? The list goes on in the how can it be and I conclude (at that moment of bipolarness) most likely we will not see anywhere near the preclincal results. There has to be a catch..
I know many posts so far have addressed some of these questions/concepts but I still remain bipolar. One moment I think wow this is amazing and exciting. Not just from a potential financial reward perspective but the from the aspect that this is a pretty big breakthough for cancer treatment and what this could mean for people with cancer. and that it all is coming from little bio-tech in canada. Now I know that the wise folks on the science side (and even finance side) say there is much to prove and still considerable risk that it fails in the complex human body. I get that but wow if it works somewhat close to the results in pre-clinical it will be pretty amazing. But again in the back of my mind are all those questions how can this be without anyone seeming to notice except for some people on a public message board and a few institutions. Again bipolar. Am I going crazy?!
By the way thank you to all who have extensive knowledge on the science and finances and contribute so much information. It is truly appreciated and I wish I could add just a small amount of info compared to your frequent and knowledgeable posts. So anyway thank you all even though I know some of you don't want to tolerate the neohphytes who aren't as knowledgeable or scientific minded etc. Yes I have no problem admitting my own ignorance. :-)