Island Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:ILA) is an antiviral therapeutics company targeting infectious diseases. The company has made two announcements this week that improve its chances of selling its lead drug candidate Galidesivir to the US government. In particular, the company has appointed two highly experienced executives that add funding and procurement capability, as well as additional knowledge of Galidesivir. This has coincided with the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, which has highlighted the urgent need for a broad-spectrum filovirus antiviral as there is no approved medical countermeasure for the Bundibugyo strain that is currently spreading. This is exactly what ILA is working on with Galidesivir. While the outbreak does not shorten ILA’s formal approval path for Galidesivir, it does raise public policy attention, procurement relevance and the possibility of non-dilutive funding optionality. Our probability-weighted NPV (rNPV) for ILA remains at $1.24/share.
