Originally posted at The New VFC's Stock House on Thursday, November 18th.
ABPI, BVTI: Accentia Biopharmaceuticals and majority owned subsidiary Biovest International both reported this week that the companies have successfully emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy according to a previously approved reorganization plan.
Shares of both companies declined on the news after having banked a significant run-up during the previous few months. Both companies have inherent long term potential if their flagship products can make it to market, but I continue to believe that Biovest has the higher ceiling based on BiovaxID, a cancer immunotherapy treatment for indolent follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Already having demonstrated both safety and efficacy in three clinical trials, the future course of Biovest revolves around advancing this product to market. Fresh on the presentation trail, Stephen J. Schuster, M.D., the Associate Professor of Medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, will deliver a presentation featuring newly analyzed Phase III data at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida during the first week of December.
On the Accentia front, a “key strategic agreement” is set to be announced by year’s end – according to published statements - regarding Revimmune, a system-of-care therapy for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
The worst may be behind these two companies, but their futures lie in BiovaxID and Revimmune. Accentia – being the parent company - will benefit if either makes it market, so it could be argued that ABPI may be the better buy at the current market prices than BVTI.
That said, BiovaxID has the higher upside, in my opinion, as I’m a believer that cancer immunotherapy is the wave of the future.
It’s been a choppy couple of years for both companies – to say the least – as investors saw extreme lows and maybe inflated highs, but both may again be worth watching as they execute their respective plans following their emergence from bankruptcy, especially if the recent pullback goes deeper.
Disclosure: No positions.
