I think shareholders ought to be careful in considerations of anything to do with Prothena. The Prothena share price is moving up primarily because of PRX012 and its similarity in MOA (method of action) to Eisai/Biogen's Lecanemab. But Prothena is a long way from meaningful clinical trial results from most of its pipeline. Edmund Ingham has posted
an excellent piece on Seeking Alpha describing the Prothena situation.
But I must ask, should Bioasis shareholders care about Prothena? Does Bioasis have any relationship with Prothena? At all? Is Prothena doing anything with xB3?
PRX012 predated Prothena's deal with Bioasis and therefore is almost certainly not an xB3 drug. The options period during which Prothena could choose two new xB3 targets expired on July 31, 2021, apparently with no options exercised. Neither Bioasis nor XOMA has booked any revenue from the exercise of these options. I believe the options expired with no action by Prothena.
Bioasis latest annual financial report references the original Prothena deal but nothing else. There is no mention of Prothena in the latest annual MD&A nor in the current QI MD&A.
In the MD&A for the year ending February 28, 2021, Bioasis stated, "...Bioasis has continued to work with its existing partners Prothena Corporation plc, or Prothena, Chiesi Farmaceutici S.p.A., or Chiesi Group, and another leading pharmaceutical company to advance their partnered programs."
There is no such entry in current Bioasis filings. The annual MD&A filed on June 14, 2022 has replaced the above quote with "...Bioasis has continued to work with its existing partners to advance partnered programs." (Even "has continued" is past tense and may not mean that Bioasis continues with any partnered programs.) In my opinion, Bioasis is evading the Prothena issue and refuses to categorically state whether Prothena is doing anything with xB3 or not.
There may also be a problem with the latest annual financial report. About the Prothena agreement, Bioasis states in Section 11 that, "Under the terms of the agreement, the Company received a non-refundable upfront payment of US$1 million and may receive up to an additional US$33 million in options exercises, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, plus low single digit additional royalties on net sales from the licensed products."
The problem arises with the statement in the same section that the option period expired on July 31, 2021. I don't believe that there is any way that Bioasis can state that the company "may receive up to an additional US$33 million in options exercises, regulatory and commercial milestone payments" if the option period has expired with no options being exercised. If there are no exercised option targets then it is false to state an expectation of anything like the $33 million anticipated by the original agreement. That potential for that revenue cannot exist if there is no longer an agreement.
If Prothena has not exercised any option targets then this must be either lazy editing of the Annual Report by Bioasis management, a failure to make the correct deduction about the effect of the option expiration, that the options were exercised with no revenue acquired from Prothena, or that Bioasis does not want to fully disclose the situation.
It also should be noted that Prothena does not appear anywhere in the current corporate presentation.
The best that can be said about the Prothena situation is that it is unclear, but I think it likely that Prothena has disappeared, completely.
I consider it bad or lazy behaviour of Bioasis management to mischaracterize or otherwise obfuscate the status of the Bioasis/Prothena agreement. And that, of course, raises questions about all of Bioasis's agreements, collaborations and partnerships. How many are really still active?
The prolific prophetoffactz is posting about Prothena. Clearly the Bioasis market doesn't care about Prothena, and I think for good reason.
Bioasis needs to clarify some stuff. If not then shareholders ought to get a leadership team in there that is capable or willing to do it.
jd