RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Montreal's Ventus Therapeutics THTX's offering still has a number of positives (and some negatives). Those positives haven't stopped being positives. This deal that NN struck doesn't seem to have those positives as a priority, in fact you could almost think it's targeting a different market in that if THTX every get their program going it's for NASH in 5 yrs time whereas this NN deal is for a 2nd or 3rd gen NASH drug, 15 or 20 years from now. I still think one of THTX's negatives (which also happens to be a positive) is that it's a downstream, multi-effect drug. Pharma like precision meds with single targets, they'd prefer to combo several of those than go for a multi-effect drug. I think the future of NASH is seen as combo (precision) drugs and this is part of NN long term strategy for that. That might fail or multi-target drugs might have a place in fixing broken metabolisms, it certainly seems that way. THTX is offering a different proposition to what NN where looking for in this deal.
I'm not sure is competitive for this particular deal, it offering a different business model. Probably the deal Aventiva struck with a Chinese company is something THTX should/could have been competitive against.
There's still probably other opportunities out there that THTX can be competitive in. I'm not holding my breath though. I think we know their offering isn't perfect, that doesn't mean it has nothing.