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pizzathyme | 4 months ago

I can understand the current global/political environment against mRNA accounting for a 90% fall in revenues and valuation. But if the mRNA tech is still progressing and promising for a variety of ailments like cancer, then the company still has substantial future value coming

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dmschulman|4 months ago

The business model for pharma and drug discovery is unfortunately one that requires a lot of upfront investment for research and trials that may or may not pay off as revenue one day.

The technology they invented is incredibly promising for new vaccines and they should be attracting enough investment (through contracts or other deals) to continue innovating and saving lives. Maybe they can license it as a last ditch effort to build revenue, but unfortunately the public perceptions about vaccine efficacy is on the wane and government contracts are no longer there to support this vital work both in the present and as a hedge against future pandemics.

dfsegoat|4 months ago

To put some numbers to trying to develop a single therapy (where candidates etc. will fail as you try them)

- Plan to sink $180-500M+ just in R&D

- Factor in failures, regulatory, clinical, recruitment, phase 1/2 trials and you arrive very quickly around $1.3-2.1 BILLION USD per therapy approved.

...there is a 90% chance that you will spend that $1B+ - and it will fail completely.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41573-020-00043-x

https://greenfieldchemical.com/2023/08/10/the-staggering-cos...

lumost|4 months ago

It's tough to get people to want a vaccine which knocks you off your feet for 3 days and needs to be repeated every 6-12 months. I'm very bullish on mRNA vaccine technology - but it's potentially a poor fit for rapidly changing viruses.

deltarholamda|4 months ago

Quite a lot of the low-hanging fruit from pharma has already been picked. The modern business model for pharma involves coming up with a patentable new drug that does the same thing as an older drug that's now out of patent and available for manufacture as a generic.

Making pharmaceuticals subservient to the whimsy of the stock market is a bad idea. It introduces incentive distortions where none should be.