RE:RE:Another Prothena QuestionNah. There was never any money, much, to be made from the Prothena deal. That deal was almost immediately modified from the original three options to two. The milestones were almost all commercial. I don't think that $30 million spread over four, then three Prothena xB3 drugs meant much financially to Bioasis, especially with Bioasis giving up a lot to XOMA.
I think the option extentions had more to do with the ROFR (right of first refusal) that Prothena has (or had, maybe?) with the options.
Every time that Bioasis wanted to introduce a new drug into its pipeline, or wanted to sign a licensing agreement with another company, Bioasis first had to pss the drug by Prothena who has 30 days to decide whether they wanted the drug or not. Prothena could buy another 180 days of deliberation by paying a penalty. Altogether it could take 7 months before Bioasis could get a thumbs up or down from Prothena. That's part of the reason why the Prothena deal was such an abomination. Prothena has, or maybe had, too much control over Bioasis.
Meanwhile, the ROFR had time limits, as evidenced by all the extensions. The first extension happened on Oct 20/19 and was for six months until April 30/20. I believe it was in April 2020 that xB3-004 (and something else, if I recall) appeared for the first time in Bioasis literature. Coincidence? Did Bioasis trade the extension for the ROFR?
Did Prothena get a further extension and gave up its ROFR so that the Chiesi deal could get done?
Did the the cancellattion of the Dec 31/22 to the July 31/21 extension, detailed in the latest annual and Q1 reports, happen because Bioasis has either a licensing deal with an unknown company and drug or does Bioasis have another program it wants to put in its own pipeline?
It seems to me that it's a good guess that Prothena was trading ROFRs for extensions. The extensions are a serious impediment to Bioasis's business and maybe it's time to force Prothena to make some choices, and to pay for the extensions if that's what they choose. Maybe that's what was going on with the July 31, 2021 extension.
It also seems to me that the 180 degree turn that Bioasis made with respect to the extensions between March 17/21 and March 31/21 may have been driven by Bioasis's immediate needs to get deals done.
And of course, it's all secret except that the extensions are material, no matter their cause.
We may not know for a while, perhaps with the Q2 financials at the end of October.
Meanwhile, if Prothena is fading and other Bioasis deals and drugs are on the rise, it's certainly ok with me.
The details of the Prothena options and the time period that Prothena had to respond to Bioasis when Bioasis required an answer were briefly
discussed in public, in response to a shareholder's question on November 26, 2018 in Toronto.
Ok, back to work for me. Don't forget the PRX012 questions, profitoftrading.
jd