I like to learn more about TBIO stock and learn more about vaccine.
It seems worthwhile to consider what financial value there is in TBIO relative to a Covid vaccine. It certainly appears that the Covid thing is going to drag out for quite some time and there is probably going to be a need for booster shots to counter new variants. Not to mention that there are still a heck of a lot of people in the world who still need and want to be vaccinated.
When you look at the other efforts out there it’s kind of an interesting mix. MRNA and BNTX have obviously scored big time but their market caps more than reflect it. I’m not sure I can see more than $60B+ in value for MRNA. BNTX at $30B+ looks a little crazy as well. CVAC has a good partner in Bayer but it’s price has been skyrocketing on pending approval in Europe with a market cap already at $21B. The rest of CVAC’s pipeline looks a lot like MRNA's. If you want one of those two, why spend the premium for MRNA? Plus Europe needs a win and CVAC is their best hope for the time being
Novavax with a protein subunit vaccine similar to the Sanofi/GSK effort. It looks promising but it’s not mRNA and Novavax’s market cap is already over $15B. Their pipeline looks just like MRNA as well. MRNA, CVAC, NVAX and to a lesser extent BTNX all look like variants of the same play and all are richly priced.
Astra Zeneca and J&J are out there with lesser efficacy along with some undesirable side effects. Neither of these are very attractive investment opportunities unless you want to buy into big pharma.
Looking beyond that there’s the Ruski’s with Gamaleya Sputnik. I don’t think you’re going to be getting a dose of that down at CVS anytime soon. Or buy their stock on the Nasdaq.
How about the Chinese with Sinopharm, CanSino, Sinovac and others. Looks like a lot of limited effectiveness and questionable trials. China may save themselves and the third world(or not) but there’s not much here from an investment thesis standpoint.
There’s another crazy one that’s been getting a little press; Bharat plus Ocugen. Apparently Bharat wants to sell their vaccine in the USA, why Ocugen as a partner is beyond me. It’s like you want to import railway locomotives so you partner with Tiffany? I don’t get it. But it has driven up Ocugen’s stock so who knows?
There’s probably some others I’ve missed plus some privately held companies. All have the same problem, it’s one thing to come up with a vaccine, and that’s difficult enough, but then you have to get regulatory approvals and you have to manufacture and distribute it. Those are huge, huge obstacles that people seem to miss. That’s why partnerships are so common. It’s nice to have some big pharma on your side with distribution channels, manufacturing facilities and regulatory experts. Hence CVAC/Bayer, BNTX/Pfizer and you guessed it, TBIO/Sanofi.
Sanofi and France look like they really need a win here. The Sanofi/GSK think looks like a bit of a circle jerk with poor response in older people(just where you need the best response) and some problems with the trial dosing. Plus it’s a recombinant vaccine and it sure looks like mRNA is the way to go. Their only other real effort is TBIO. They’ve already dumped $450M into the deal which is chump change to them but it really improved the look of TBIO’s balance sheet. There’s the potential for $2B+ more if TBIO delivers. The TBIO technology looks a lot like the other successful mRNA vaccines(MRNA, BNTX, CVAC). Sanofi delivers manufacturing, distribution and regulatory expertise.
So what’s up with TBIO's market cap?? $1.5B, no debt and $650M in cash. That’s crazy. Ocugen even looks expensive in comparison. There’s a multitude of small biotechs with market caps in the $3B to $4B range and pipelines that look more like pipe dreams. I don’t care if Sanofi buys TBIO or not, I just think TBIO looks really cheap here compared to the alternatives. And that’s just relative to Covid, I didn’t even mention the CF effort which is not dead yet. I think there's a lot of value here for $1.5B.
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