SIMRIS GROUP AB With the new CEO in place, Simris has now set course to pursue the most high value application area for microalgae, the biopharma sector in general and the novel Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) market for cancer treatment in particular. With revenue opportunities in the form of collaborations with pharma companies, alongside of the algae biomass and food supplement businesses already in scale-up phase, the venture into biopharma has potential to dominate the business in the long-term, adding to the potential triggers to unlock a revaluation of the share.
Focus to migrate to most high value application area
In the new CEO’s first official communication with shareholders,
While pure biopharma license production and a GMP production facility are still some years away, the company now sets out to create revenues from collaborations with pharma companies. This is a first step to expand activities beyond biomass and Omega-3 that are already in scale-up phase. In the long-term however, the high margin nature of the biopharma venture means that it may grow to dominate the company, a development which could be accelerated further by acquisitions.
ADCs quickly catching up to CAR T
Looking closer at the ADC market in the CEO’s crosshairs, we find that ADCs, that comprise of an antibody conjugated to cytotoxic payloads by specially-designed linkers, not long ago was considered to have potential to become the magic bullet in oncology. But they’ve also presented huge challenges to researchers particularly regarding the identification of a suitable combination of antibody, linker, and payload. We also note that ADCs have quickly caught up to CAR T and is now amongst the fastest growing drug classes in oncology.
Today there are 12 ADC drugs approved by the FDA, including Kadcycla for metastatic breast cancer, Polivy for relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and Adcetris for treating relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. The latest approval was for Tivdak in
Far reaching implications for the share
It has long been debated where Simris should allocate its limited resources to best capitalize on all the various and highly dispersed business opportunities that come with owning a world class microalgae production facility. While we expect to see continued biomass deals as the ones press released in the past year, and a pick-up following the re-launch of the Omega-3 this fall, it is now clear that the CEO is gunning for the most ultra-high value opportunity out there, which we also believe to be the one that produces most value for shareholders in the long-term. With the strengthened financials after the combined rights and directed share issues during summer, that raised 25 MSEK before costs, we expect that Simris is fit to pursue affordable bolt-on acquisitions provided they are accretive to the Simris share price.
All in all, we continue to see a significant revaluation potential in Simris, and that the triggers are now starting to line up, the most important one would be an accretive M&A deal that can accelerate the venture in the biopharma space. For now, we continue to see an upside risk to our forecast of 25 MSEK in sales in 2023 and 35 MSEK in 2024 with a positive EBITDA by 2025. Supported by only a fraction of listed peer multiples we find support for a fair value of 150 MSEK in 2023 and 210 MSEK in 2024, which translates to
Read the report here: https://www.emergers.se/simris_l/
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