$AQST – Long-term high-risk, high-reward, pharma play w/ potential for +1000% return
*Enter Aquestive's Lead Drug, AQST-109…
Now for the real potential golden egg. Aquestive is working on an orally administered drug to treat allergies that is a direct alternative to EpiPen's autoinjector. The clear and obvious benefit here is that the patient would not have to stab themselves with a needle in order to administer the drug. EpiPen autoinjectors have been known to have failures (https://www.center4research.org/epipen-maker-failed-investigate-product-flaws-associated-patient-deaths-fda-says/), and also require some degree of manual skill in order to administer. Compare this with ease of oral administration via dissoluble film strip, and it doesn't take a leap of imagination to comprehend why one method of treatment would be preferred over the other.
AQST-109 has already shown positive pharmacokinetic (efficacy of drug in a living organism, measured by dosage, drug plasma concentration, distribution, time to absorption, and many more measured factors) results in their initial head-to-head study with EpiPen (https://aquestive.com/aquestive-therapeutics-announces-positive-epiphast-ii-trial-data-for-aqst-109-when-compared-to-epipen/). Latest headlines and news re-affirms that they are publishing the positive data to the scientific community
The Epinephrine market is absolutely massive. “The global epinephrine market is projected to grow from $1.75 billion in 2022 to $3.63 billion by 2029, at a CAGR of 11.0% in forecast period.” (https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/epinephrine-market-104291). Estimated fair-value SP is anywhere between $7-$12. A very rough estimate equation to calculate market value would be = cost per vial (treatment) * number patients * market penetration (factor of market adoption 0.0 – 1.00). Number for this equation are wildly speculative, so it's hard to even project. I'm looking more at the SP pre-Libervant approval, and how it was expected to be $9+ on/at approval. However, that did not pan out and we are where we are now. AQST-109 is a different kettle of fish with no direct competitor and a significantly larger market for the drug's application.
Analysts have a projected a price target of $7-$10 (https://www.marketbeat.com/stocks/NASDAQ/AQST/price-target/).
Final thoughts!
With a current SP of $0.91 at time of writing, this stock has the potential for 1000%+ upside. If you don't mind investing on the pretense of future successful clinical trials, and an FDA approval, while holding shares for 1-2 years, then the potential payoff is worth it IMHO. I have been dollar cost averaging down, and I'm holding nn,nnn shares until the results of the AQST-109 pipeline are submitted for FDA approval sometime in 2023-2024.
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