The stint that never happened? Biotech vet David Hung wipes Axovant from his work history By Damian Garde April 10, 2018
Fast forward a few years: 2019 Axovant: An Interesting Turnaround Story With A Promising Pipeline Feb. 21, 2019 Sio Gene Therapies Inc. (SIOX) Axovant Sciences has transformed itself into a gene therapy company, now renamed as Axovant Gene Therapies, with at least six ongoing programs. Shares seem to have bottomed and have risen >20% in the last month. Key data readouts in 2019 include clinical readouts from gene therapy programs in severe refractory Parkinson's disease, GM1 gangliosidosis and GM2 gangliosdosis/Tay Sachs disease. The gene therapy programs are addressing target markets with revenue potential of billions of dollars. We estimate $500M peak risk-adjusted revenue in Parkinson's, with current market cap of just $187M.
Axovant Gene Therapies (AXGT) is the new name for former Axovant Sciences, which has now transformed itself into a pure-play gene therapy company focusing on neurological and neuromuscular diseases. As readers may be aware, Axovant failed the key phase 3 MINDSET trial for its lead drug intepirdine in treating Alzheimer's disease. Following this, a second trial failure for nelotanserin in treating dementia due to Lewy Body Disease resulted in the stock falling to below $1 and the CEO Hung (former CEO of Medivation) quitting.
Nov 10, 2020 'We're not a vant': Axovant seeks to forget the past as the company rebrands to Sio Gene Therapies Max Gelman Senior Editor Aiming to shed the legacy of an epic Alzheimer’s fail a few years ago, Axovant $AXGT is changing its name in a full corporate rebrand.
What happened to SIO gene therapies? Sio Gene Therapies - Wikipedia In November 2020, Axovant rebranded as Sio Gene Therapies. In April 2023 the shareholders of Sio Gene Therapies voted to liquidate and dissolve the company.
He rescues what is known as orphan drugs, not a bad thing
And some people, who ‘think’ they’re intelligent, want this guy as the next VP?
Vivek Ramaswamy has raised tremendous sums in the biotech field, starting companies then closing them after complete failures. He lost investors money but became rich, estimated wealth $500 million in one recent story.
All of the bets he made re Biotech failed and finally in 4/23 his latest company voted to liquidate.
His newest scheme is an attempt to force companies to use a middleman to guard against companies using Woke principles for investments. He has created a company that would act as a middle man for a 1.5% fee, earning his company up to $1 Billion/year according to Forbes.
The problematic point is that the companies he is targeting have consistently refused stockholder proposals to use Woke criterion. Basically he is using a book he purpose wrote and seminars on anti woke to create a ground swell to put money in his pocket to fix a non existent problem.
The more I learn the more it is apparent that this cynical opportunist, with the charisma to sell biotech investors on multiple failed ventures, is making a calculated assault on Exxon, Black Rock, Vanguard and others to syphon off $ from American’s pensions. I posted this topic so that those who are interested can search deeper & form their own conclusions.
How dare you. Saint Swammy is like the 2nd coming to some around here. Someday our side is going get suspicious when an unkown comes out of nowhere singing a siren’s song we find easy to fall for.
Things and people too good to be true usually ARE NOT.
This has been my assessment of this young man, with pockets full and no product, since he came on the scene.
He is probably not much more than a glorified snake oil salesman. As beguiling as the snake.
Many many years ago my late Momma sang the virtues of another young man she thought was just great and told me he should be our next President. I was a very young man then and gave him a look and told her no. His name was Al Gore.
Momma had a very hard time getting over being a Roosevelt democrat. She sort of did before she passed but it never completely left her. I remember asking what the difference between democrats and repooblicans was and she said that one was for the poor and the other for the rich. Simple as that to so many of these people of the Depression. The idea lingers on today, an idea the democrats promote and the repooblicans do nothing to refute.
No matter the party, most politicians are not worth the dynamite it would take to blow them up. If you managed to get them all at one time you’d statistically be doing us all a favor.
One more link. Many many companies were created, merging, being acquired, much capital invested. It is clear that big pharmy consumes enormous $. The drugs developed will have high price tags for small improvements over existing drugs. The cost benefit ratio is unclear. Cynically I believe the people made rich along the way see that end as the main goal.
Two drugs have been approved thus far from outgrowths of the origanal company Rolvant:
A drug for end stage prostatic cancer, slight improvement over existing therapy. Relugolix
A second drug, Vibegron in the Treatment of Overactive Bladder
Interesting
Share holders of Roivant Sciences, Ltd are enjoying an increasingly negative string of negative income years and every increasing operating costs.
Why does this feel like a chapter from a book called PONZI?
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ROIV/financials?p=ROIV
A wonderful strategy to buy orphan drugs that big pharma can’t figure out how to promote for serious though obscure maladies with so few victims that there is not a large enough market to make money without charging obscene prices that the market will not bear. That is not unless you can lobby successfully to persuade Medicare to cover them, such as Aduhelm or Leqembi, both of which cost over $28,000 per year. No, Alzheimer’s is hardly obscure easily tugging at the heart strings of the desperate and the greed of many.
‘In the case of Aduhelm, the anticipation of substantially higher Medicare Part B spending due to coverage of that drug contributed to a 15% jump in the Part B premium between 2021 and 2022, an increase substantially above the norm.”
My Momma died with Alzheimer’s over a period of nearly 10 years. She was medically fine at nearly 92 except she lost the ability to eat, drink or function in addition to the slow and inexorable loss of memory. Prolonging this agony by merely slowing it is hardly a good thing. I think most of us who have lived with it would agree.
To be sure, Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease that I would not wish on any victim or family. I’ll forego the horrible speculation I have felt wondering if the sufferers are conscious of their disease in ways that comatose patients attempt to scream to be heard about the sounds and thoughts of others they hear. A living nightmare in something like hell.
The smarm gives this away as hit piece it is.
Someone just went to prison for all that, no?
The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, the former Theranos CEO whose prison term has been shortened by 2 years
Roughly tied with DeSantis in some polls.