Are you feeling like a valued employee?
In what must be the highest valuation paid for a Phase 2 drug and a pipeline of follow-ups (all in the same pharmacological category mind you), GSK is paying nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars for Sirtris.
That’s $180 million for each of Sirtris’ four years of existence.
Okay, so Sirtris has its share of sirtuin-activator patent applications pending (at least 180, according to the company). But those aren’t issued patents, are they?
Three-quarters of a billion. That’s roughly three-quarters of a billion for each of Sirtris’ one issued U.S. patent.
And they’ve got a small-molecule drug that apparently has cleared Phase 2. But that leaves another development phase and a regulatory review to go before even getting to market by my math.
Three-quarters of a billion with at least four more years of development time.
History tells me that pioneering small molecules for diabetes that have cleared this development hurdle have roughly a coin’s toss odds of eventually gaining major marketing approval, and a much lower chance of making it to market and becoming blockbusters.
And yet.
Three-quarters of a billion. Roughly $9 milion per Sirtris employee.
Are you feeling valued yet?
