Potential effect of tariffs

[biopearl123]

Korea 25%:

In 2024, st pharm signed multiple supply agreements with multinational pharmaceutical companies for oligonucleotide apis, including one for a hematologic cancer drug that received fda approval on june 6, 2024. industry observers believe this drug to be imetelstat, developed by geron corporation. 

st pharm possesses integrated in-house production capabilities, covering the entire process from monomer synthesis to final oligonucleotide manufacturing. their facilities, located at the banwol campus in korea, have undergone multiple expansions to enhance manufacturing capacity. 

while geron oversees the final formulation and distribution of imetelstat, the core oligonucleotide api is produced in korea by st pharm. 

Considering how long it took to establish the manufacturing supply chain and pass all the stringent FDA requirements, moving all aspects of manufacturing to the US seems impossible over the short term. It would seem that the price of an already expensive drug just went up. We think we know part of the production process occurs in Indiana (and Italy).

BP really is a global operation for the good of patients, It would be dreadfully expensive and disruptive to move all aspects of manufacturing, fill and finish etc, here. LP (little pharma) may not escape this disruption and may be even more enslaved by “liberation day.” The French Revolution was accompanied by the very misleading slogan of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” but led to many involuntary separations of the caput from the corpus. Patrick Henry called for “Liberty or Death”. I hope that “liberation day” does not lead to the latter choice for our patients. Ms. Bir, will have to address this either on May 7th or at the shareholders meeting.

[KTArsenal]

All investments are risky, right now. WS is built for billionaire capitalists, as we speak. The current administration is going to continue to build wealth for the extremely wealthy while the rest of us search for dry powder that we really do not have.

All American businesses will be valued less than they were pre-MAGA. Find me a country that’s willing to do business with DJT regime and I’ll show you countries that are on the world’s sh*t list.

But let’s attack Greenland, because Denmark is so terrible to the world.

[biopearl123]

KT, at least you have kept your delicate sense of humor.

[huntingonthebluffs]

More like unhinged. Hardly something we should be running off the rails about on this board. And whatever the impacts, Geron will work through it. It's taken years for Geron and us on this board and we still don't have the greatest footing. Maybe cutting a little slack on an administration that has been working for less than 3 months on a massive global trade equation can be okay.

biopearl123, I know there is uncertainty in the BP area re tariffs, but I think we all know the difference between the cost to manufacture a brand name oncology drug under patent protection and the cost to sell it is substantial, generally orders of magnitude. While the cost to manufacture, including raw materials and labor, is relatively low, the costs associated with research and development (R&D), clinical trials, marketing, and distribution contribute to a much larger final price. While we don't have specifics on tariff's contribution to the final cost of Rytelo, IMO it will be small.

Given tariffs are a moving target currently, the goal is getting to free trade and that is in everyone's benefit so as you say, waiting for feedback from the new CEO makes sense.

[biopearl123]

Hunt, Point taken about actual cost of production vs. final costs to patients. But if the purpose of tariffs is to encourage companies to produce products in the US, it’s hard to see how that might only result in fractional increases in costs when it comes to drugs like Imetelstat. Recall that ST Pharma, Banwol Korea invested close to a billion dollars to prepare for oligo production demand (obviously not all would be Imetelstat) and the GMP required. Hard to see how that production could easily be brought to the US without incurring huge costs and having to recreate the wheel. I don’t think we can know what portion of the supply line would be subjected to tariffs. We do know that a substantial part of drug manufacture is in the US already, and is now the responsibility of Catalent in so some aspects of the tariff imposition might be blunted.