Chemical ScaffoldsIn the interest of exploring the underlying value of RVX and Zenith I've gotten interested in the equity of scaffolds...the foundation on which the molecules are built.
My hypothesis, right or wrong, I am beginning to believe that while the success of apabetalone (rvx-208) will be a blockbuster in late 2018 and then a few years later it will make it to market. Likewise, zen3694 and a success with mCRPC could be a blockbuster in Q4 2017.
However, RVX has about 1400 compounds/molecules produced and Zenith has 2500 epigenetic compounds as I recall. Each of these are built using one or more epigenetic scaffolds deveoped by these companies.
So the question is "what is the value of the scaffolds in these corporations?". So far we have no answers on this issue.
So I asked my son to ask his friend about chemical scaffolds. His friend did his masters in biochemical engineering. Following is his response;
- "It's been a while since I did my thesis but I think the term chemical scaffold can refer to any ordered chemical structure or framework. For example, carbon nanotubes could be classified as chemical scaffolds. I made metal-organic frameworks, which are made up of inorganic (metal) hinges, which are held together by organic molecules. The type of metal that you use will influence the geometry of the scaffold, however not all metals have a strong preference for a given geometry so it can be difficult to control the structure. During synthesis the pH, temperature, type of solvent used, etc will all influence the final structure. So they can be very difficult to build, as the conditions need to be very consistent. I was using my scaffolds for absorbing drug molecules into their pores, which can be very difficult to do since you need to control a lot of factors such as the pore size and functional groups within the pores. From what I saw when I was doing my research, any time researchers discovered a new scaffold they patented it. So it seems to be general practice to patent scaffolds. Regarding flexibility, I think it depends on the type of metal that's used as the hinge. I used ferric (iron) ions for my structures and that made them flexible. So the pores would completely close when there were no drug molecules inside and then they would open up if you introduced a solvent (like water). But most structures are rigid. I used copper as my hinge on another structure and it had no flexibility."
So the key points for me are
difficulty and
patents. This possibly implies that a suitor, thinking long term, may see value in the scaffolds that RVX and Zenith hold. The implication is that a buyer is really buying a process and system of future development and not just specific compounds.
Anyway, I could be completely off base here but it seems like a reasonable hypothesis to explore.
GLTA
Toinv