Biotie at Jefferies conference

Biotie Therapies’ (OMXH: BTH1V) Chief Operating Officer Dr. Ian Massey gave a presentations at the Jefferies 2012 Global Healthcare Conference last night in New York, USA. He highlighted the upcoming European MAA decision for Selincro (nalmefene) in alcohol dependence. The company continues to expect approval for the drug by the end of this year and says this will result in a significant milestone and royalties from partner H. Lundbeck (MOX: LUN). There wasn’t any new colour to add to previous announcements regarding to data from the three phase 3 studies and he said that peak sales projections from Lundbeck continues to be around 335 million Euros per year.

Tozadenant (SYN115, an Adenosine A2a receptor antagonist) Phase 2b data in Parkinson’s disease key inflection point is expected in H1 2013. The drug is partnered with UCB Pharma. Biotie company has several compounds that are ready for phase 2 studies and it has been trying to land a partner in order to do so for a couple of those. The track record in partnering talks within the last several years is very poor so investors are hardly expecting many developments on that front any longer. Roche is currently anticipating whether to opt in SYN120, a 5-HT6 inhibitor drug candidate for Alzheimer’s. The company thinks it may the best-in-class agent. Competitors such as Lundbeck and GlaxoSmithKline have their own agents in the class under development. The SYN prefix denotes compounds acquired in the Synosia transaction. The company has been quite active in the M&A front and is trying to build on that.

Biotie does aim to proceed with the development of BTT-1023 (VAP-1) on its own. According to the company’s new focus, it aims to study this initially inflammation indication drug candidate in inflammatory CNS conditions including intractable epilepsy. Furthermore Nepicastat, which is being studied for Post traumatic disorder, will be entering sponsored studies in cocaine dependence later this year. The share has been on a downward trend ever since the announcement that Selincro MAA was filed and it is down around a third for the year. The lone happenings since then have been the apparently ever increasing number of shares. There are now nearly 400 million of those and the company is valued over 130 million at yesterday’s closing price.