Sønderlemmende kritisk analyse af Enochian på Seeking Alpha

Rene Sindlevs børsnoterede biotekfirma Enochian Bioscience får på den anerkendte aktieportal Seeking Alpha ekstremt hård medfart af en health care-analytiker, der giver selskabet et kursmål på 1 dollar. Analytikeren demonstrerer dyb indsigt i sin vurdering af biotekselskabets substans samt af patentsituationen, som nærmest latterliggøres.

Enochian handles på den amerikanske Nasdaq-børs til en børskurs på ca. 5,6 dollars, efter et dyk til 3,8 dollars i starten af oktober. I den aktuelle analyse er kursmålet for biotekselskabet 1 dollar, baseret på en grundig gennemgang af selskabets substantielle indhold, herunder værdien af eventuelle patenter. Analytikeren har tydeligvis været dybt nede i de forskellige dokumenter fra Enochian, og der bliver afsløret nye forhold, som Økonomisk Ugebrev ikke har været inde over.

Ingen penge til forskning
For det første konstateres det, at hovedparten af omkostningsbasen er dedikeret til personer omkring ledelsen og de store aktionærer i form af eksterne konsulenthonorarer, og at de interne R&D-omkostninger er minimale: ”Largest R&D expense are consulting agreements with company affiliates. The company spends less than $1m on internal R&D, far less than necessary to find a cure for HIV in my opinion.”

For det andet fremgår det, at selskabet ikke har verserende, beskrevne patentansøgninger under behandling, som kan sandsynliggøre selskabets værdier, og der synes endnu ikke at være substantiel dialog med den amerikanske sundhedsmyndighed FDA. ”A delay of over 6 months to a year to seek a meeting with the FDA is needed just to start an application for human trials – possibly, because they aren’t starting with much. A $300m valuation reflects a lot of blind hope in my view,” hedder det. For det tredje fastslås det igen, at der ikke findes videnskabelige artikler om Enochians konkrete idé, og at selskabet er i en fase forud for eventuelle museforsøg. Omkring selskabets ambition om en fuldstændig kur mod HIV hedder det, at ”while everyone would love to have a cure for HIV, I have serious doubts that Enochian has much at all except a capital structure to greatly benefit it’s board which owns about 65% of the company and can continue to grant options, stock and consulting agreements. Now miracles can happen,

however we have not seen anything significant to date and currently the company is valued at $300m (fully-diluted) with less than $10m in cash. There are no scientific publications or data and the company is in pre-IND mouse model stage of development.”

Oppustede værdier
For det fjerde sås der tvivl om værdien af de centrale IP-rettigheder, altså de rettigheder, som Enochian for 155 mio. dollars har købt af Enochians tyrkiske læge, der ikke har dokumenteret nogen som helst forhistorie med HIV eller kræftbehandlinger. ”The backbone Enochian intellectual property license sits on the balance sheet as an intangible at roughly $155m, creating inflated book value in my view due to the inflated amount paid for it, and the company is valued at $300m with only $10m in cash. This IP is solely from a patent (…) owned by the Inventor. I also have trouble finding a publication from the Inventor or Enochian on the use of autologous stem cells or anything biochemistry-related let alone any scientific data for their treatment from web searches, filings or their own web site. There just seems to be blind hope.”

Omkring grundtanken i en kur mod HIV oplyses det, at Enochian følger et spor, som allerede er opgivet af et andet biotekfirma: “The method Enochian is taking to cure HIV is similar to that taken by Sangamo, that is eradicating T cells with chemotherapy and transplanting CCR5 knockout stem cells so HIV can not enter T cells. Sangamo decided not to commit further internal resources to this because it could not consistently eradicate the virus and it was a cumbersome process which needed chemotherapy to work.”

Videre hedder det i analysen, at” Enochian claims to get around (…) Sangamo’s pitfalls with more effective engraftment and gentler chemotherapy. However, we have yet to see anything that suggests this can work in a mouse let alone a human, and it will take years and tens of millions of dollars to see if the virus in humwwans is fully eradicated and worth undergoing the treatment versus a virtually chronic disease treated daily with pills.”

Læs hele analysen på Seeking Alpha her . Læs også Rene Sindlevs kommentar til Økonomisk Ugebrev her .