RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Pfizer bought deal You often nention strong links to Pfizer...Obviously Paul knoed a lot of people there abd probably has many friends.... but that wont facilitate a deal..Actually it might make negotiations harder...Paul's strengths and weaknesses are well known by his former bosses .We also dont know why he left Pfizer .... but he did leave ...He is now a competor in some way
Of course if THTX have a real drug discovery PFE could want it and so would others
No inside track except that that Paul knows where to knock
SPCEO1 wrote: Deals are now happening in the NASH space (AKRO's is the second one recently) and Pfizer has been involved in at least one of them. TH clearly has strong links to Pfizer and is looking for a NASH partnership. Yet Pfizer did a deal with AKRO instead. Maybe TH was in contention and lost out to AKRO due to the economics of both deals. Maybe TH lost out because of the water issue causing a delay in developing a pen. Without the pen, Egrifta will not have a chance of being competitive with a pill. Maybe TH was not even being considered at all because of patent or other issues. The most important patent for protection is the composition of matter patent and that has already expired. The use and formulation patents are more easily overcome by those same crafty patent lawyers you suggested TH/MGH used to protect Egrifta in liver diseases. I am no patent expert, but I suspect it is a real problem when it comes to working out a deal with a big pharma as all of these other NASH stocks are operating on nearly impenetrable composition of matter patents.
But if it is not patents, it is something that is holding a partnership back. Since some are now happening and TH has not been one of the deals that have been struck, there is something about their situation with Egrifta that is holding a deal back. I remember I copied some info from their annual report filing some time ago which listed all of the challenges they face with Egrifta in NASH and it was not a short list. So, it might be one of the other factors but I suspect the lack of composition of matter patent is a hurdle to getting a deal done.
qwerty22 wrote: I'm not convinced by this arguments. The patents were written at MGH, I expect they have access to great Boston patent lawyers well versed in the needs of biotech. I'm confident there's some value in the new suite of Egrifta/liver disease patents. I think there is plenty of potential for Egrifta, yesterday's new study on rGH impact on NAFLD is further support for that. I think there are a bunch of other negatives swirling around this program that aren't things that will hold this back forever but which don't play out well in the present circumstances. It seems to me totally sensible that if Akero were offering a slice of their pie then Pfizer should go for that well before they went for THTX given valuations. Akero has fallen a long way in two years without the clinical story getting worse.
I think you are ignoring some of those other negatives and selling the patent story too negative to make up for that.
SPCEO1 wrote: My best guess is that Egrifta is not getting any traction from potential partners in NASH due to its patent situation. I don't think there is much doubt that Egrifta would work well against NASH (or at least it has as good a chance as others, if not a better chance of working) but the problem is more on the patent side of the equation as Egrifta would be working off of less protective patents than AKRO and the others. In a market as big as NASH could be, those patents would no doubt be challenged and big pharma may not be interested as a result.
qwerty22 wrote: Seems like Pfizer are getting a bargain but good to know they are interested in NASH. Some parallels between this drug and Egrifta - injectable, upstream drug. Doesn't seem to have any generalized positive impact on other NASH stocks (couple I checked are down today including MDGL). If THTX's program wasn't in cold storage and we were living in normal times this would be good news for THTX.
jeffm34 wrote: Akero is a phase 2 NASH company. Not much else in the pipeline. Market cap around $350M they have $150M in cash and burn rate around $25M per quarter.