VIVEK RAMASWAMY

-Changing the market scenario in

Bio-TechnologyPresented by :-Varsha DadheechMayank YadavSheenam KaushikRoneet Kumar

A company that did not exist last summer had the biggest U.S. biotech IPO ever.

Axovant Sciences sold shares at $15 a piece, raising $315 million at a $1.4 billion valuation. Already, the stock is up 90%, giving Axovant a valuation of about $2.8 billion.

HOW ???WHO DID THIS ???

VIVEK RAMA-SWAMYA 29-year-old former hedge fund manager, the Forbes put him on the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Finance list.

ABOUT AXOVANT LTD. AND VIVEKAxovant Sciences is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the acquisition, development and commercialization of novel therapeutics for the treatment of dementia, a condition characterized by significant decline in mental capacity and impaired daily function. 

The lead drug candidate, RVT-101, will start a confirmatory phase 3 clinical study in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s Disease has demonstrated statistically significant benefits in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

ABOUT VIVEK RAMASWAMY• Applied Baccalaureate (AB) Degree, summa cum laude, in Biology from Harvard College ,and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School.

•Director of OnCore since August 2014 ,served as a Partner at QVT Financial LP from August 2007 to May 2014.•Mr. Ramaswamy has been President and Chief Executive Officer of Roivant Sciences, Inc. since May 2014. •Mr. Ramaswamy has been Chief Executive Officer of Axovant Sciences Ltd. since March 2015.

WHAT HE DID ?

Ramaswamy’s Bermuda-based company, Axovant Sciences, had been formed only eight months earlier, but here it was raising $360 million to develop an Alzheimer’s drug that had been all but abandoned by giant pharma GlaxoSmithKline.

WAS IT THAT MIRACULOUS?

No, because...

the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology Index has surged 300% in five years, compared with a 100% gain for the broader Nasdaq index and 70% for the S&P 500.

On the first day of trading the stock almost doubled, giving Axovant a market capitalization of nearly $3 billion.

Ramaswamy had persuaded Glaxo to part with the unproven remedy for a mere $5 million up front.

The party ended when critics, experts and analysts’ collective blogosphere piled on. They asked, Why would Glaxo sell off a promising drug for so little? And how could a company with ten employees, two of whom were Ramaswamy’s mother and brother, be worth so much?

As a result, Axovant’s shares went into free fall. By early September they were trading 12% below the IPO price.

WHAT RAMASWAMY IS UP TO? He is rescuing the pharmaceutical

industry’s forgotten drugs. according to Ramaswamy, the IPO,

according to Ramaswamy, is just “a first step on a broader mission” to liberate abandoned or deprioritized drugs that routinely languish in the pipelines of pharma companies, never reaching patients or enriching investors.

“So many drugs that would have been of use to society are cast aside. Certain drugs have gone by the wayside for reasons that have nothing to do with their underlying merits.”,says ramaswamy.

CONTINUED…

Using a pharmaceutical holding company he formed last year, Roivant Sciences, Ramaswamy hopes to spin out dozens of companies, much as he did with Axovant.

“This will be the highest return on investment endeavor ever taken up in the pharmaceutical industry,” he boasts.

CONTINUED…

Ramaswamy has quickly established a track record: Roivant Sciences’ 76% stake in Axovant and its Alzheimer’s pill, code-named RVT-101, has produced a 20,000% paper return on its initial $5 million investment.

Before that Ramaswamy turned an $8 million purchase of several drugs to treat the liver virus hepatitis B into a $110 million stake in Arbutus BioPharma, a 1,275% paper return.

CONTINUED…

In May, Roivant scooped up a drug for psychosis for $4 million from Arena Pharmaceuticals. It also recently partnered with Duke University group with a track record for inventing rare-disease drugs.

A whirlwind of such deals has made Ramaswamy, a member of the FORBES 30 Under 30 list, biopharma’s youngest chief executive. He may soon be its youngest billionaire.

FORBES estimates that Roivant is worth $3.5 billion, making its Millennial founder’s 20% or so stake worth some $700 million.

NOW WHAT ?

With this instant success Ramaswamy was poised to think bigger.

BIG NUMBER . . . Everyone knows that Alzheimer’s

disease is a scourge–it’s forecast to afflict 13.8 million Americans and cost the U.S. economy $1 trillion annually by 2050.

But it’s also a pharma death trap. Between 2002 to 2012 researchers

tested 244 Alzheimer’s drugs, and only one made it to market–a 99.6% failure rate.

SOLUTION . . .

Ramaswamy’s research chief, Friedhoff, had led the development of Aricept, the bestselling Alzheimer’s drug ever, with $4 billion in peak sales.

GLAXO DECISION In 2010 Glaxo had announced that it

was mostly going to exit the field, and any lingering interest in Alzheimer’s drugs would focus on reversing the disease instead of relieving symptoms.

RAMASWAMY WAYS . . .But when Ramaswamy looked at the data

forthe drug, he saw a winner.

It had failed the first three clinical trials that tested the drug alone.

But Ramaswamy and many experts believe animal data that show RVT-101 will work far better when paired with an older drug like Aricept.

A fourth study offered evidence of that, but the trial failed because Glaxo picked the wrong endpoint.

PROBLEM AGAIN

In the fourth study RVT-101 reversed Alzheimer’s patients’ symptoms to where they had been more than six months before, but then the disease’s merciless progression continued.

GREAT SOLUTION More comfort: Another drug being

developed by the Danish drug firm Lundbeck targets the same brain receptor as RVT-101 and shows similar results. Friedhoff, Roivant’s renowned Alzheimer’s expert, was convinced.

DRUG OUT OF GLAXONow the only problem was getting the

drug outof Glaxo. Eventually, Ramaswamy got the terms he wanted:

just $5 million up front but also $160 million in milestones and a 12.5% royalty on sales.

Basically, he gives big companies a chance to win big–if RVT-101 ever becomes a $1 billion seller, the royalties would boost Glaxo’s earnings by 2%, which is an enticing proposition for something that carries enormous sunk costs and zero prospects otherwise.

BIRTH OF AXOVANT

With the drug in hand, Ramaswamy decided to spin out Axovant–the company built around RVT-101 as its only asset–hitting up his old hedge fund peers.

HEDGE FUNDS Kolchinsky’s condition: He wanted a big

position. He bought $75 million worth, his fund’s largest holding, at the IPO price.

So did hedge fund Visium Asset Management. Mutual fund managers like Capital Growth and Janus also bought in.

WHY TO RISK SUCH AMOUNT ?

ITS REALLY EASY NOW : A decade ago raising $100 million in a

biotech offering was nearly unheard of. Today it’s commonplace and not just in

public markets. In January venture capitalists put $450

million into Moderna Therapeutics, a company with fascinating science but no drugs in testing, and a few months later they gave $217 million to Denali Therapeutics, another company focused on Alzheimer’s as well as Parkinson’s.

DECISION TO GO IPO Amid this rush of money Ramaswamy’s

big Alzheimer’s IPO spooked investors. After all, for Ramaswamy’s team Axovant is a no-lose investment, given the minuscule price it paid Glaxo for RVT-101.

SPIN DECISION Spin is an important part of

Ramaswamy’s game plan, and his youthful enthusiasm and hubris haven’t gone unnoticed.

But however the drugs perform, there’s real financial innovation here, with potential to save and improve countless lives, whether through him or others who emulate the model.

And that’s something a biotech bubble, whenever it bursts, can’t wash away.

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