January 5, 2019 12:32 PM EST
Pharma

Re­mem­ber that mega-block­buster val­u­a­tion Ab­b­Vie as­signed to Ro­va-T? It’s start­ing to van­ish — qui­et­ly

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

Ab­b­Vie ex­ecs have fi­nal­ly got­ten around to do­ing what a host of an­a­lysts man­aged to ac­com­plish long ago: writ­ing down the val­ue of their once much-vaunt­ed can­cer drug Ro­va-T.

Way down.

On Fri­day the com­pa­ny filed a no­tice with the SEC ex­plain­ing that Ab­b­Vie $AB­BV has de­cid­ed to knock $4 bil­lion off the book val­ue of the drug weeks af­ter re­searchers were forced to stop re­cruit­ing pa­tients in the now in­fa­mous TAHOE study.

Ab­b­Vie is am­bi­tious­ly leav­ing $1 bil­lion of val­ue on the books, but they note it’s un­der re­view.

That’s $1 bil­lion more than any­one else would of­fer right now.

Ob­servers nev­er did be­lieve the drug war­rant­ed a fat $5.8 bil­lion cash ad­vance in the Stem­cen­trx ac­qui­si­tion, with $4 bil­lion in mile­stones. By the time the com­pa­ny halt­ed the late-stage TAHOE study a month ago af­ter de­ter­min­ing the drug arm had a short­er sur­vival rate than the con­trol arm, an­a­lysts prepped last rites for the drug.

The com­pa­ny doesn’t much like to pub­licly dis­cuss prospects for this drug any more. They have much bet­ter to of­fer in Phase III. Look for a qui­et pas­sage and a small ser­vice.

Mem­o­ries will linger, though, as this reg­is­ters as one of the worst biotech deals on the books.

AUTHOR

John Carroll

Editor & Founder

john@endpointsnews.com @JohnCendpts
John Carroll on LinkedIn
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Senior Editor

Pharmacy benefit managers are beginning to see enemies on both sides of the aisle: On Wednesday, a US Senate committee advanced to the full chamber a bill to increase PBM transparency and crack down on what lawmakers and critics say are deceptive practices.

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Re­mem­ber that mega-block­buster val­u­a­tion Ab­b­Vie as­signed to Ro­va-T? It’s start­ing to van­ish — qui­et­ly

Has the mo­ment fi­nal­ly ar­rived for val­ue-based health­care?

Up­dat­ed: Ex-Seagen chief Clay Sie­gall emerges as CEO of pri­vate biotech

No­vo Nordisk oral semaglu­tide tri­al shows re­duc­tion in blood sug­ar, plus weight loss

Ly­me vac­cine test com­ple­tion is pushed back by a year as Pfiz­er, Val­ne­va say they'll ad­just tri­al

FDA ad­vi­sors unan­i­mous­ly rec­om­mend ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval for Bio­gen's ALS drug

Eu­ro­pean doc­tors di­al up dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with phar­mas, but still lean to­ward in-per­son med meet­ings, study finds

Judge al­lows ex­pert tes­ti­mo­ny in GSK tri­al al­leg­ing Zan­tac link to can­cer

Ab­bott in­tro­duces the Mel­on fam­i­ly to raise con­cus­sion aware­ness

Sen­ate com­mit­tee ad­vances PBM bill as bi­par­ti­san re­forms gain trac­tion