/biz/ - Business & Finance

Kitov's NT-219 has already shown tremendous potential partnering with Merck's Keytundra drug, upwards of 80% effectiveness and even improves cases that are drug resistant. Secondly the FDA this week approved Keytundra for head & neck cancers, which is what NT-219 is for. The head & neck cancer market is priced at 4-5bil a year. NT-219 is entering Clinical phase 1/2, and the whole process could take about 1-3 years for full approval depending the study results. Any drug that is patented has a 20year patent exclusivity before the drug can be pushed generically by other companies (after going through their own FDA approval process). So Merck now already has an approved drug that they probably spent 100mil or more on developing, that is now open to a new 5bil market with a drug that can potentially improve it's effectiveness up to 80%. think it's a smart business move to pay Kitov royalties for NT-219 for the next 20 years? That's a lot of money to shell out for a drug that you know already has a massive benefit with one of your already FDA approved drugs. An acquisition makes more sense. The risk/reward is almost negligible for Merck. Finding a drug with the effectiveness like NT-219 is basically winning the lotto for Kitov and more importantly Merck. On top of all the badass links people have already found between Merck and Kitov, one I fail to see gaining more traction is the fact that Merck Filed a 4.5 BILLION Form 8-K two days ago. Form 8K's are typically used for a myriad of things, including freeing up funds for acquisitions. If Merck was planning an acquisition of Kitov's outstanding shares of roughly 150mil (can't find an exact number) for $4.5b, that would put a buyout price of $30P /s. Which is extremely reasonable considering the potential market place.