Panning for gold - Drug discovery & Business Development at Nuevolution

2018-05-09 12:13

Nuevolution is certainly geared for finding medical “gold nuggets” – Discovery and subsequent work is aimed at finding chemical substances (oral pharmaceuticals) that inhibits or stimulates medical targets which are known to be important to diseases within inflammation and oncology/immune-oncology – diseases which often have a large medical need and hence, are very valuable. The corporate strategy to continuously spread the risks on 15-20 targets is excellent for the biotech investor as opposed to many other more or less “one-trick-pony” biotechs.

In the latest quarterly report you can learn all about modern drug discovery in the early phases – a very advanced process in biology and chemistry where Nuevolution can leverage its propriety Chemetics technology – all excellently told through the analogy of the” Great Gold Rush”. Half a year ago – in the report issued in September, the company made a similar analogy in respect of pre-clinical work in the form of a “Soccer Match”. It is a creative, bold and smart bunch of people in the company – both in the form of “story telling” and “story making”. Nuevolution is certainly geared for finding medical “gold nuggets” – for details, see my previous posts regarding RORgamma and BET inhibitors.

We are almost in the middle of the second quarter and the first quarter report issued yesterday holds a number of guiding promises for the second quarter, of course with the normal pre-cautions. The rest of May and June are likely to be very news heavy.

-         Up listing on main market before end of June

-         My personal assumption is that in connection to such an up listing a larger capital injection from institutions and international investors is going to happen

-         The company says it is expecting to report on the following during the second quarter

o  Mechanics of action (MOA) and further effects on BET-BD1 inhibition

o  MOA and potentially broadened scope (i.e. massive) of Cytokine-X

o  Both these drugs can replace monoclonal antibodies which in total are expected to sell for approximately 135 billion dollars in 2024 – around 90 billion dollars today.

In the coming six months it is likely that we also will see:

-         One or a couple of new partner agreements as expressed in the quarterly report. In respect of RORgamma in remaining indications outside the Almirall partnership or specifically in IBD while keeping the remainder for own development. In respect of BET-BD1 we may see a mega deal on all indications or licensing on some indications & geographies.

-         Amgen may opt-in in one or two of the first joint cancer development programs where conclusions appear to be in process

-         Milestone payments from Almirall in the range of 10-20 meur in respect of RORgamma

The market is clearly, as of now, not grasping the opportunity Nuevolution represents. In a couple of months it might be a completely different story.