Erik A. Otto

Anyone else worried about GLP price wars? Recent NVO moves and results show steep price concessions, and while mounjaro / zepbound are better drugs, are they THAT much better? Plus some markets where semaglutide is off patent. Plus lots of other GLPs coming in a few years. Long story short (pun intended), is LLY a short here? Just a thought.

A few thoughts about biotech in 2025 and ideas for 2026. $XBI $NBI

Some thoughts on $IOBT after today’s news. At $28 M MC, stock is trading like it’s completely dead, but is it? Two potential upside scenarios here that market may be missing: 1. European submission and approval. There were only 7 patients on Cylembio in the P3 trial in the US. Plus in the US, the front line standard of care is either Ipi-Nivo or Opdualag, not Pembro, so the comparator arm wasn’t appropriate. I.e. not only is the sample very small, but the Pembro control was not a “representative population” for the US. Europe is a different story because the 1st line SOC is still Pembro, so the control arm was appropriate. Plus 2/3 of the study sites were in Europe, so they have a huge sample. Of course, the study still failed, but these differences could be meaningful for regulators when deciding whether or not to allow submission and approval. 2. They could be an acquisition target for a P3 redo. In the PDL-1 negative population in the Phase 3, the PFS was 16.6 months on Cylembio vs 3 months on control. While this is still post-hoc, this is a very strong signal. And on a broader level the main trial came very close to success. Why wouldn’t some big pharma be interested in buying the company on the cheap for $100-200M and then run another P3 in at least the PDL-1 negative population? Seems like a decent POS and ROI to me. Many Phase 2 stage companies have much less or worse data and are valued much higher. Buyer beware here, because it’s now a nanocap and there is a good chance the stock could bleed to nothing. In fact, that's probably the most likely scenario, but that doesn't mean stock valuation is giving due credit to these upside possibilities. Welcome other opinions.

$atyr strong lately. Here is my article from early 2024 on the company. I still think it's cheap fundamentally and the thesis and fair value estimate still stands for the most part. Recent developments have been incremental positives (claims analysis, expanded translational work, anecdotes on steroid use and EAP), but also some dilution since then. Not expecting much from SSc data as it is exploratory, low n, probably noisy, and we have very little translational data on skin effects of Efzo in SSc, whereas we have so much more on the mechanistic rationale and clinical data for ILDs and especially Sarc. Market is significantly underappreciating upside in Sarc not only based on POS but also market size. I think the drug is active; biggest risks are novelty of trial design and indication. https://t.co/iFMETvisxl