Bøger af Jason Hsu

The selection of biotech stocks for investment is more difficult compared with the selection of other stocks and industries that possess historical data, since biotechnology is a recently new science. In the first edition of this book, we described the crucial parameters for the valuation of an early stage biotech company without a drug in the market. In this edition, we analyze novel financial models that can value stocks of biotech companies with products in the market or products under development (in pre-clinical and clinical studies). All of these parameters should be helpful to potential new investors when creating a stock portfolio that includes highly promising biotech companies. Our strategy of selecting highly promising stocks based on all parameters described in this book and of performing a basic financial modeling analysis with DFC and/or real options valuation models has proven very successful, as this strategy provides returns higher than 100% in most cases. In the first edition of this book, based on our strategy, we suggested that Juno Therapeutics and Kite Pharma were "hot" stocks. At that time, Kite's stock was $50.19, while Juno's stock was $54.21. Since then, Kite's stock reached $179.79, with the company acquired by Gilead for $11.9 billion, while Juno's stock reached $86.96, with the company acquired by Celgene for $9 billion. Furthermore, Moderna Therapeutics, a private company that we valued at $5.5 billion in 2016 based on our real options financial model, today has a $7.5 billion valuation. This newly revised and expanded version was written to help investors in the selection of biotech stocks based on different scientific and financial criteria.

Janet Yellen, the Fed Chair, recently said that the valuations of small-cap biotechnology companies are substantially stretched. Biotechnology is a relatively new science and during the last few years there is an increasing number of new biotech start-up companies and also M&A activity between biotech start-ups and large biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Few years ago, we observed one of the largest acquisitions in the biotech sector, by having Amgen buying Onyx Pharmaceuticals for more than $9 billion dollars. More recently, Moderna Therapeutics, a biotech company developing mRNA therapeutics, broke the record of VC funding, raising $450 million dollars in a single round of funding, without having a product in the market. All these recent events raise an important question: what are the valuation financial models used in the biotechnology industry? How could we value a company having negative cash flows for several years, without any product in the market? How do we value a company developing a CRISPR therapeutics currently in the preclinical level? Is there any difference on valuating a phase II drug against arthritis vs a phase II anti-cancer drug? This book is aiming to answer these essential questions by describing the key aspects of the drug discovery process, including novel financial models used for valuation of biotech companies. Furthermore, we have created new biotech valuation cases providing to the reader a practical guide for valuation of any biotech product or company.