Building Wealth Doc's note: Cancer is a terrifying diagnosis. But it's no longer a death sentence.
New treatment options arrive each year and we're making better progress than ever. Developments like immunotherapy show a lot of promise for the future.
Today, we're sharing an excerpt from my colleague David Lashmet's Stansberry Venture Technology newsletter. Dave explores the most cutting-edge technology in science and medicine. Here he discusses why we're so hopeful about the latest cancer drugs in development.
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In Stansberry Venture Technology, we track the 242-year cumulative progress of American medicine and technology.
Even so, the pace and power of change can sometimes surprise us. This summer, we attended the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting to learn about the latest breakthrough cancer treatments.
ASCO has an annual meeting of 20,000-30,000 U.S. cancer doctors. For us, the ASCO meeting isn't just about the science of cancer treatments – it shapes the health care market because these same doctors prescribe drugs.
We discovered the best drug results against solid tumors that we've ever seen... and a small firm that offers investors significant double-digit, near-term upside...
In the past 16 years that we've been following cancer treatments, we've never seen better drug results against solid tumors.
This isn't a cure for all cancer, only folks with that target. But for those individuals, it's profoundly effective – more than good enough to head straight for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval after Phase II trials.
For example, take Mary Z., a 14-year-old girl suffering from a horrific case of what was once called "juvenile breast cancer." It's now called "secretory breast cancer" – but it's still an early onset cancer.
These make up about 1% of breast cancers – or about a few thousand cases per year in the U.S. Normally, this sort of tumor is slow-growing. But Mary already went through repeated surgeries to treat it. Plus, she tried – and failed – four different kinds of chemotherapy.
Basically, nothing was working.
So with a tumor roughly the size and shape of a king crab growing in her chest, she joined an experimental drug trial. In six days, her tumor was half the size. In 20 days, it was 99% gone. And she has stayed on the treatment.
All successful cancer drugs have one or two stories like this. But this drug has six complete confirmed cures so far.
And most of the other patients in the trial have greatly benefited... About three quarters of patients showed clear tumor shrinkage... and another 12% saw their tumor stop growing.
That means nearly 90% of the patients benefited.
Of course, this was a small trial and it's still ongoing. But we like how the trial results look so far...
We're interested to see where this drug – and its parent company – will go. We estimate a conservative potential market for this drug could be about 10,000 patients...
And at a drug price of $100,000 per person per year, it's a potential $1 billion drug at peak sales. That's a blockbuster. And it's the sort of number that interests a potential Big Pharma partner, especially considering how safe and effective the drug has been in trials so far.
And the company behind this drug has no sales force... so approval means one of two likely paths:
| 1. Either the company signs a 50/50 marketing deal with a Big Pharma firm, plus a cash sweetener – say, $250 million or so. In that case, it would only see about half this potential peak revenue. Still, its 50% or so profits would be like a royalty stream – providing $500 million at peak sales at high margins. | |
| 2. Or a Big Pharma company could simply buy it out at about a 50% premium. That would give investors a quick double-digit gain. |
Better yet, this isn't a one-drug company...
By buying it, you receive one drug that is a near shoo-in for FDA approval, along with two drugs that you can treat as gravy – one promising candidate and another longer-shot drug that can boost your returns.
This small, cash-rich company is just one of the fascinating players in cancer therapy that I cover in Stansberry Venture Technology.
And this Wednesday, November 15, I'm going to be sitting down with Dr. David Eifrig to discuss a cutting-edge discovery that could revolutionize cancer treatment. Click here to reserve your seat.
Good investing,
Dave Lashmet