RE:RE:RE:Yet more on the meeting with management I think Taimed can find a new European partner. It is an expensive proposition for Theratechnologies to set up the infrastructure just to sell one drug in multiple European countries. There will be companies that have a salesforce already in place that see physicians that specialize in HIV. Their cost to sell Trogarzo would be much lower. Likewise in the US it doesn't really cost Thera anything to sell Trogarzo. They are already seeing the same physicians to sell Egrifta. It would make sense to keep the rights to Trogarzo in the US.
SPCEO1 wrote: On NASH, there are clearly no partners willing to give TH what it wants so far. Perhaps the new protocol will change that (they may have requested the changes at the behest of a potential partner) and we will get a positive surprise, but I am not counting on that.
One of the other shareholders on the call brought up the need for additional products for the salespeople to sell but they offered nothing on that.
Another thing that did not come up at all but I was just thinking about was since they have returned the rights to Europe to Taimed, and since Taimed claims they are looking to find a new European partner (which is a very suspcicious claim as that seems unlikely to be achieved) could TH endup selling the US rights to Trogarzo to someone Taimed found to buy the European rights, in order to unite the two regions? Again, it is hard to see how Taimed will find another European partner, so this is more of a wild speculation. But just something to keep in the back of your mind. While the salespeople need more product to market, if the price was right for Trogarzo's US rights, they could actually lose a product. This might be more like sheer nonsense than a wild speculation, however!
palinc2000 wrote:
I think Nash can be a value driver both short term (upon partnering)and medium term(interim take on efficacy vs futility.
I have been much too optimistic on the delay to land a partner but I dont think the company should capitulate at every roadblock....THTX is a miniscule company and any positive event has a major impact on value creation..... This is also why revenue from product sales also an important value driver..... Maybe the addition of another product in an accreditive deal could be in the cards as part or as a result of the next Financing
SPCEO1 wrote: There was some discussion around the financing issue. They know they need to assure the market they can handle the possible redemption of the convert in order to attract investors to the stock. So, some sort of financing is going to happen sometime soon. It sure sounded like the debt option is still the main one on the table but I really do not have a firm idea of what they might be up to here. Maybe there is something quite creative on the financing front but it more likely just going to be a sizable debt deal so the market can see they have the funds to redeem the convert if needed in June 2023. They are not burning through much cash and still have enough to run the cancer trial plus some extra. But, biotechs need to have a healthy cash balance to be treated right by investors. I asked if they were to do a debt deal would they also get analyst coverage along with that and I got a very confident affirmative reply. So, maybe the calvary will finally arrive on the analyst front.
On the China partnership deal front, it seems both TH and the Chinese companies are now more interested in waiting for the preliminary efficacy data before moving forward since it is so close at hand. TH is interested in waiting as they want to attract top tier Chinese biotechs to the deal and preliminary efficacy signals will help with that. It will be interesting to see what amount of cash upfront payment might be realized from this potential source. Paul said the interest in a partnership is "as good as it gets" but I suspect the salesman in him was coming out (like when Italy's pricing decision for Trogarzo was a good indicator for the rest of Europe or that there was partnership interest in NASH - CEO's have to say such things but they are half truths at best). Hopefully, anything they might be able to structure on this front will not ultimately come back to bite them.
On NASH, the revised protocol is almost done and they expect no surprises there, so it should be as they have already talked about. Of course, NASH is still temporarily mothballed due to t he water issue (the one plant that produces this water is in India and run by Pfizer) He indicated they are still committed to NASH but one has to wonder how strong the committment is at this point. He is still counting on good MDGL results late this year to stir up interest in NASH among potential financial partners again. I will believe that when I see it. He said TH had done an market study for Egrifta in NASH and got good results from the field about the potential interest in Egrifta for NASH.
Paul again stated that Egrifta sales are rebounding nicely post covid and post the sales force internalization. I will be amazed if they meet their guidance for fiscal 2022 but they are at least off to a good start. Not much was said about Trogarzo sales in the US.
That's about it - hope that helps.