Enanta Pharmaceuticals Inc (ENTA) 옵션

a plug for ENTA in the comments section of today’s WSJ piece

Mind to share your comment here? I don't have access to WSJ. TIA

It’s been a rough ride so far, never imagine the stock would trade this low.

Thought $20, $25 would be a very reasonable target when I started buying this back at teen, what a downhill ride so far. And Trump killed the latest rally. What a timing

Still think we are just one news away from redemption here! And hopefully soon!

A man of few words.

FWIW—I posted a plug for ENTA in the comments section of today’s WSJ piece on biotech woes:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/biotech/biotech-industry-trump-tariffs-rfk-jr-62a3cfc1?spot_im_highlight_immediate=true&spot_im_comment_id=sp_92LbaOI5_WP-WSJ-0002557062_c_2vaJGiC5Ay3WgSTxByuubrabCX5&utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_campaign=liked-message

..stupidity
time will tell

Gulp! That is conviction..or.....?

I'm over 100k now and counting....

i can account for 215K shares or about 1%
that's more than enough for me

I have been adding and I know couple others here also did the same.

Maybe sooner or later we will absorb all the public float and trigger a short squeeze ;)

Not going to sell until I get at least some value for the pipeline, might take a while. But I actually found ENTA to be a relatively safe name in the space given its cash, income steam and sizable insider holding

“I pay $4 to get $10 cash, $5 royalties and free optionality on the pipeline - seems not a bad deal”

That’s exactly my thinking.

The negative EV for bios has been a thing for a long time as you probably know given how cash intensive drug development can be. I don’t think it’s justified here let alone such a steep discount to cash

lol good catch, I actually edited the message to add the extra negative

Duh, and another negative stock day

You used a triple negative where I think you meant to use a double!

It’s extreme, i guess biotech in general has plenty of negative EV cases, especially after Trump sworn in. just dont think this is NOT as hopeless as the others.

I pay $4 to get $10 cash, $5 royalties and free optionality on the pipeline - seems not a bad deal

for sure the base case is no partnership and also some slog in moving forward immunology - that is the only way you get to such a negative EV

Lack of confidence on management execute is a big issue there. Market probably worry it will be yet another ready to partner asset that no one wants.

We are trading at less than half of net cash.

At this point, they can do buy back and cut expenses and shop itself to highest bidder and we all will make good money.

We won’t get 50 bucks, but a quick 20 under Trump isn’t bad

General market sentiment does not help a bit here

Marginal value to shareholders for starting trials now. We are beyond that. The longer this lingers, the more this asset depreciates. Two more years of a nuclear winter as the deal space has been shut down. Senior management at startup Biotech have frozen in place, imo.

EDP-323

second DDI study initiated by ENTA this week

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06917508?term=enanta%20rsv&aggFilters=status:rec&rank=3

They are certainly setting things up to move the drug forward into phase 2b. Given the stock price perhaps some investors are reading this as lack of confidence in the lead RSV asset? Regardless I don't think ENTA is going to be running the phase 2bs for 323 and a partnership remains highly likely IMO this year

Don't follow your rational, surely respect your opinion.  Best to you. Respectfully....

True. $20 now would be pretty nice, not going to cry about it if it happens tomorrow.

I too worry this would drag on without the RSV deal.

But the potential upside force me to be patience here

To you it screams desperation, to me it screams $20 per share to me. ENTA price action just showed us that it can linger here for months. In this crazy market and uncertainty, I'd rather take cash now than be exposed to all sorts of risks for who knows how long. If the deal does not pan out in the next few months, I'm adios amigos.

Yes agree, no rush. If rush sell now, they would not get good value for RSV nor the immunology engine.

We might get 15 or 20 bucks for the company on a rush sell now.

RSV alone would be worth that money if not more in a good day.

Immunology is a big wildcard obviously

Respectfully disagree. I believe we should give them the latitude to work out a deal for RSV and afford them the opportunity to develop their immunology program. Dumping everything now is a short term approach that screams desperation in my opinion.

I think they should do something soon if they can’t partner RSV out soon.

Either they need to shop itself or cut expenses drastically

With Trump, run way to 2028 does not seems enough

No reason for ENTA to do that now—that's the fallback option to be implemented if nothing pans out.

“Reciprocal” tariffs on non-China countries lowered to 10%:

https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-authorizes-90-day-pause-on-reciprocal-tariffs-f31d5097

How about ENTA just unwinds, sells remaining assets including their revenue stream and returns the cash to stockholders? Getting pummeled day in and day out is no fun.

It defies explanation.

You are talking about our tariff policy? 😀

It defies explanation. Trailing the index and totally unloved all morning and now someone’s got a hardon for the stock in late day trading.

I just sold 10%-20% of all of my individual stock holdings, which are all biotech stocks except for NFLX which I bought during the pandemic. If things go south, which I expect, people will watch TV instead of going out.


I'm taking a different approach, adding presently a little at a time, specifically with ENTA.

Good luck to you. I hope it works out as I kept 90% of my ENTA so it will work out for me. I will revisit ENTA and other stocks I sold in a month or so.

I'm taking a different approach, adding presently a little at a time, specifically with ENTA.

Actually, this deal was announced yesterday:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/abl-bio-announces-grabody-b-brain-delivery-platform-license-agreement-with-gsk-to-develop-novel-medicines-for-neurodegenerative-diseases-302421544.html

Approximately $100M in up-front/near-term cash; $2.5B total biobucks.

Looks like a small deal with maybe a well downstream payoff for GSK to me. I am growing way more pessimistic about the market so will trim more positions today.

This market is NUTS!

Actually, this deal was announced yesterday:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/abl-bio-announces-grabody-b-brain-delivery-platform-license-agreement-with-gsk-to-develop-novel-medicines-for-neurodegenerative-diseases-302421544.html

Approximately $100M in up-front/near-term cash; $2.5B total biobucks.

Unfortunately there are no deals being done in this space with all the trashing of the economy from the tariff fiasco..

Enanta Pharmaceuticals Announces Respiratory Syncytial Virus Data Presentation at ESCMID Global 2025
Apr 08, 2025

......today announced that data from the Company’s Phase 2a human challenge study of EDP-323 in healthy adults infected with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) has been accepted for an oral presentation as an ePoster at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases Global 2025 (ESCMID, formerly ECCMID) being held April 11-15, 2025 in Vienna, Austria.

The oral ePoster presentation will include results from a Phase 2a human challenge study of EDP-323, a first-in-class, oral, non-nucleoside small-molecule inhibitor of the RSV polymerase (L-protein), which were announced in September 2024 and highlight new data on respiratory mucus production.

ePoster Title: “EDP-323, a First-in-Class, Oral, RSV L-Protein Inhibitor Reduces Disease Severity (Respiratory Mucus Production) and Accelerates Viral Clearance in a Human Viral Challenge Study”
ePoster Number: E0289
Abstract Number: 04019
Date and Time: April 13, 2025, 8:30 a.m. CEST/ 2:30 a.m. EDT
Session Location: Arena 1
Session Title: Novel Approaches to Antiviral Therapy
Presenter: John P. DeVincenzo, M.D.

https://ir.enanta.com/news-releases/news-release-details/enanta-pharmaceuticals-announces-respiratory-syncytial-virus

Your best guess - When would RSV deal come?

My bet is between May and early July ;)

If not, then probably will have to be near year end or early next year after the adult data.

FWIW, I added today…

How can you not able to foresee Trump will do all these crazy tariff moves?! ;) /s

I'm removing this post from a yellow sticky. Mea culpa.

ENTA uses various contract manufacturers, including some in China, but there are no new tariffs (yet) on pharmaceuticals (#msg-176012189). All told, the effect of tariffs on ENTA is likely to be negligible, IMO.

From ENTA's most recent 10-K (p.30): We do not have our own manufacturing capabilities, except with respect to limited amounts of active pharmaceutical ingredients needed for preclinical development. To date, we have relied on third-party manufacturers, including manufacturers in China, for supply of active pharmaceutical ingredients and ingredients for use in clinical trials of our product candidates. We also expect that in the future we will rely on such manufacturers to produce commercial quantities of any product candidates that we commercialize ourselves. Manufacturing for glecaprevir is conducted by AbbVie. Wherever possible, we seek to identify multiple suppliers for raw materials and key intermediaries to be used in our manufacturing process.

Manufacturing of study drug in China and TCJA. I do not know how the TCJA research and development tax write-off interacts with off-shore investigative drug manufacturing (a type of research and development). I also do not know if tariffs come into play on this type of off-shore R&D service expenditure.

Enanta disclosed that a portion of their investigative manufacturing occurs in China.

Any thoughts will be appreciated.

Yes nobody will be immune to this short term shock, and potentially long term adjustment period.

But ENTA got to be one of the least impacted by tariff in the investment universe.

I can see some upside as now US big pharms might become less keen to partner up with Chinese firms .

I agree that ENTA is a strong buy. However, let’s hope the uncertainty that has gripped the market is resolved in the short term as the current climate reduces the likelihood of a positive partnership deal.

Agreed. Also, in theory, RFK's position on vaccines could enhance the appeal of ENTA's oral RSV program.

And yet, we are below $5 here.

$ENTA fits that description to a tee. A lower interest rate also boosts the NPV of ENTA's Mavyret royalty stream from $ABBV (which runs to 2033).— Roy Friedman (@DewDiligence) April 5, 2025

Not now, no way they would take 300mm or even 400mm

300mm is lower than cash plus royalty value
400mm assumes almost zero value for the pipeline

BUT if they continue to drag their feet and burn their cash without RSV partnership and no success in their new business line for a couple years, then
300mm will become the bull case ;)

Not a perfectly relevant study, but here it is...
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Thanks meipp.
Questions follow:
1) Does the royalty license transfer to the acquiring company?
2) Thought there was a potential debt component to the royalty. Is that accounted for?
3) Do you think the board would even consider an unsolicited offer of $300-$400 million?

The value is here. Reiterating here.

Sums of parts

— Cash 230mm (account for 20mm cash burn)
— Royalty 130mm (conservative)
— RSV 100mm (even more conservative)
— Immunology and other IPs 0mm (again, conservative here)

$20pps and we all know RSV should fetch more and immunology would be another level if it works out.

Happy weekend!