RE: Let's be honest...31 May 2026 12:03
Very true LTB.
There is sentiment for either this stock, or for the leadership, at least within a small community of people who actually bothered to follow/research these guys - the oversubscription back in October 2025 would be evidence of that. We've probably come a long way since. I've been reading around NFX and the potential deals that could come about. Imagine if there is a 50-50 split globally between Boehringer and Kissei.
Boehringer already dominates the IPF market with OFEV and their newly approved Jascayd, but the drugs only slows disease progression by about 50%, none of them actually stop it. NXP002 changes that completely given the data from May 2026 which showed near-complete ablation of fibrosis biomarkers when used alongside existing treatments. Ideally, it doesn't replace what Boehringer already sell, it compliments them. Patients would take OFEV or Jascayd as normal and add NXP002 as an inhaled therapy on top, it would be like a full-stack delivery of meds, oral and inhaled, no competitor can touch that combination.
Bo's own in-licensing lead Dr Eric White, whose job literally includes due diligence for new assets, was on the ATS planning committee in Orlando last week. Chris Blackwell on the NFX board personally signed a £30m inhaled drug deal with Boehringer when he ran Vectura. So my guys aren't strangers to each other. Logcally the difficult bit of getting through the door is done.
Kissei is arguably an even more natural fit because they literally invented tranilast, the molecule NXP002 is built on. They've sold it commercially in Japan for 30 years under the Rizaben brand. Nuformix took that molecule and transformed it into an inhaled cocrystal that delivers it directly to fibrotic lung tissue with precision never previously possible and have since got dual FDA and EMA orphan designation on top of it. Japan has one of the highest IPF rates in the world, Kissei already has the commercial infrastructure across Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan, and their entire recent deal strategy is exactly this... They pay upfront for Asian rights and let a Western partner handle the rest. They paid $70m upfront to Viridian in 2025 for Japanese rights to an eye disease drug they'd never even touched before. NXP002 is built on their own molecule, so in theory they should be aware of it.
I can't though see any evidence they were at the convention in Orlando, you'd assume they were as it's in their best interest to do so.
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