Interview in The Life Sciences Report
April 12, 2012
Stephen M. Dunn, President LifeTech Capital & Senior Managing Director of Research was interviewed by The Life Sciences Report as part of their Expert Interview Series. Mr. Dunn discusses the preventive and therapeutic vaccine space and those companies that may be of interest to investors. Specific topics include the roadblocks encountered by some developers of immune therapies and how other companies are working around those obstacles, producing investment opportunities in the process. An excerpt appears below:
Vaccine Therapies Hold Promise for Investors
The Life Sciences Report: I’d like to talk about preventive and therapeutic immunization. How large is the preventive vaccine market?
Stephen Dunn: According to the World Health Organization, over 12 million (M) people are reported to die from infectious diseases annually, with the unreported figures much higher. In addition, the number of people afflicted with nonfatal infectious diseases is likely near 1 billion (B), which also represents significant global healthcare and economic costs. While difficult to calculate precisely in dollar terms, the global vaccine market is roughly $30B or more, with the U.S. representing $20B or more. We expect this to grow significantly as there are over 300 infectious diseases and only about 15% of them have an effective prophylactic therapy…..Read the entire interview free-of-charge at: http://www.thelifesciencesreport.com/pub/na/13072
Interview in The Life Sciences Report
February 16, 2012
Stephen M. Dunn, President LifeTech Capital & Senior Managing Director of Research was interviewed by The Life Sciences Report as part of their Expert Interview Series. Mr. Dunn discusses the infectious disease space and those companies that may be of interest to investors. Specific topics include antibiotics and antibiotic alternatives, vaccines and adjuvants, DNA vaccines and diagnostics. An excerpt appears below:
Infectious Disease Technologies Could Open Investment Opportunities in 2012
The Life Sciences Report: Why is there such a disproportionate amount of effort and resources targeting oncology versus infectious disease?
Stephen Dunn: Most people don’t realize that globally more people die from infectious diseases than from cancer. We currently think of cancer as a terminal disease of the developed world while we believe infectious diseases are a third-world problem and are treatable if only they had proper access to medical care. The fact of the matter is that increasing human population density combined with cheaper global travel between poor and developed regions has magnified the risk of infectious disease outbreaks in the developed world. Even now, our community and healthcare facilities are seeing all sorts of new strains of infections. In addition, human encroachment with wildlife and increasing contamination in the water and food chain have caused a number of deaths and triggered multiple food recalls.
Infectious diseases require a significant expenditure of drug developer time and money. As a result, oncology drug development appears more attractive. The development and regulatory hurdles are usually much lower for oncology drug development since most cancers affect fewer than 200,000 people a year, qualifying them as orphan drugs requiring just a single Phase 3 trial with a shorter review period.
Today, approximately 60% of new biotechnology companies are focused on oncology and they attract almost 70% of the venture capital and public market capital for biotech. However, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) is expected to fund $15 billion (B) for infectious diseases, excluding HIV, during 2012 versus only $8B for cancer. While Wall Street has been somewhat ambivalent, the U.S. government clearly sees the growing threat and is funding significant research for infectious diseases. We expect investor sentiment to grow during 2012 as we are beginning to see more and more pathogens that are resistant to current vaccines and antibiotics….Read the entire interview free-of-charge at: http://www.thelifesciencesreport.com/pub/na/12559
Biotech Showcase 2012 Panel Appearances
January 16, 2012
Videos of LifeTech Capital panel appearances by Stephen M. Dunn, President LifeTech Capital & Senior Managing Director of Research and Sachin Kelkar, Managing Director Investment Banking at Biotech Showcase 2012 conference, which took place January 9-11, 2012 in San Francisco, are now available for viewing on our Events page.
