RE:RE:PwC sees continuation of US$ 5 to 15 Billion Bio M&A Deals When Pharmacyclics released its first data in December 2009 for a drug candidate code named PCI-32765, it did not generate much excitement. When the poster containing the data was first put up at a major medical conference in New Orleans, most doctors and scientists ignored it.
But one Wall Street investor found his way to the red-and-white poster, attracted almost by some invisible animal scent. Richard Klemm worked at OrbiMed Advisors, a relatively large biotech hedge fund in New York. Reading the data presented, Klemm saw that this experimental drug owned by Pharmacyclics had generated two partial responses in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL. Partial responses in CLL, the most common form of adult leukemia, were a rare event, and there was little to help patients when they got sick.
Klemm called up his boss, Sven Borho, in New York. They saw that shares of Pharmacyclics had last changed hands for $2.35. OrbiMed started buying the stock the next morning. Borho bought his first Pharmacyclics share for $2.31.
Back in New York, another stock trader took note of the Pharmacyclics data in CLL. Before the market opened, Pharmacyclics put out a press release, including some data that was not on the poster. There were another three CLL patients taking the drug who had experienced partial responses in recent days. In total, Pharmacyclics said, five out of six CLL patients on the drug had recorded partial responses.
But something else was going on. When Rothbaum first started buying Pharmacyclics stock, it traded between $1 and $2.
Pharmacyclics’ trial drug would go on to become Imbruvica, a game-changing medicine for CLL patients. Pharmacyclics and its one amazing drug would end up being sold for $21 billion, or $261.25 per share. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2023/01/13/for-blood-and-money-book-excerpt-wayne-rothbaum-pharmacyclics-robert-duggan/?sh=4ad0a7ea4f97