RE: Dose of Harsh Reality24 Mar 2023 19:09
Great post from Adam today. The only one that some of us can learn from here.
Recent oncology dealmaking trends provide insights on strategies for dealmaking in the current market.
Early dealmaking appears to be the norm in oncology nowadays, as 73% of non-acquisition deals from 2015 to 2022 involved preclinical ventures.
Mean preclinical oncology acquisition deal – 359M; mean licensing deal – 540M; mean partnering deal – 985M (all USD). We have a MCap of 10M USD.
The mean deal values of partnering or licensing deals occurring at phase 1 were even lower than those occurring at the preclinical stage, though the upfront payments were slightly higher. Contrary to the common belief, the data suggest that oncology ventures don’t become a lot more valuable once they enter the clinic. No evidence was found for the necessity to clinically de-risk a platform technology. On the contrary, about half of the platform companies were still preclinical at the time of the deal.
Given the fierce competition in oncology nowadays, big pharma can no longer afford to sit on their hands waiting for the next-generation technology to be validated in the clinic.
Atlas have recognized this and developed a different business model for 24% of their portfolio companies, which is called the special purpose vehicle (SPV) or LLC holding company model. In these types of company structures, there is a holding company that has the platform IP and separate subsidiaries (each an SPV) for individual programs that contain target-specific IP. This model is ideal for platform companies and has been successfully used by companies such as Nimbus, F-star and Teneobio.
SPVs can leverage the full economic potential of a platform, but also create tremendous flexibility. A company could progress an SPV to a bigger value inflection point when it has capital available to do so, or alternatively, seek a risk- and resource-sharing partnership to reap more of the commercial benefits. This makes sense when capital from the private and public markets is readily available. Conversely, in cases of economic downturns, like the bear market we are facing right now, a company can focus resources on its mission-critical SPVs and seek licensing or acquisition deals for non-core SPVs.
So, it turns out the BOD are two years ahead of the curve on this. Credit where it is due.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d43747-023-00002-6