RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:About The Neuramedy DealI was looking at Neuramedy's efforts to cross the BBB with aptamer drug conjugates. Aptamers don't need to be made from cells lines. They can be manufactured, not so simply, but they can be chemically manufactured. They're then chemically conjugated with a payload, in this case, tomaralimab.
So Neuramedy has to manufacture the monoclonal antibody and the aptamer, separately, and then chemically bond the two. It's like an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) in that regard. Enhertu, the drug we've been talking about a lot lately, is an ADC. They sounds expensive to manufacture, to me. Quality control must be quite involved, meaning expensive.
An xB3 version of tomaralimab requires that the producing cell line be programmed to produce tomaralimab with xB3 already attached to it. Skip all the aptamer stuff. Not needed. It's done just like tomaralimab, alone, is manufactured. Manufacturing costs of xB3-tomaralimab should be far less than the aptamer version.
The saving in manufacturing costs, alone, could be worth more than $72 million per year. And then, you have a drug but it wouldn't exist without xB3, and you, the shareholders, should be paid for that.
I think I'm right about aptamer/tomaralimab costs. I think xB3 is a cleaner and cheaper solution, if it works. If it doesn't work - no milestone payments. If it does work, low milestone payments and some royalties, but, of course, they're secret.
If the royalties were high then there would be at least two reasons to reveal them. One, Bioasis is getting paid a proper royalty and it increases the value of Bioasis. Two, it sends the signal to all pharmas that Bioasis gets high royalties for xB3 licenses. As it is, the signal of the secret is that Bioasis won't reveal it because they hope to negotiate higher ones in the next deal, meaning this one is low.
I hope there's other stuff going on that I don't know, stuff that explains this deal, because I don't want to be right about this. But...
jd