Janssen has these capabilities, while Arrowhead is not tooled for this, at least not yet and not for this disease.
So it clearly makes sense to partnerARO-HBV with Janssen at this time from a strategic standpoint, and the economics, guaranteed and contingent, make this deal transformational for us.
Let’s take a closer look at the economics of the deal. As I mentioned, we will receive $250 million upfront between the equity investment and cash payment. We are eligible to receive a $50 million milestone payment linked to the Phase 2b study, giving us a total of potentially $300 million in the near term. Importantly, our HBV cost exposure will stop, saving us at least$25-30 million in 2019 alone, so this is a possible infusion of over $325 million in the near term on top of the nearly $90 million in combined cash that we reported in our last10-Q and the recently triggered milestone payment from Amgen that we announced in August. This keeps us from needing to access the capital markets any time soon. Add to this the remaining $600 million in potential milestone payments from the current Amgen agreement and the remaining $3.4 billion in potential milestone payments from Janssen and we have potential access to an additional $4 billion plus royalties in the years ahead.
This is a deep well indeed, and it enables us to create substantial value by retaining our pipeline. Do we need to partner our programs against AAT, APOC3, ANGPTL3, Hif2-alpha, ENaC and more? Potentially not: we now have substantially more flexibility to capture more value from these and future programs. For a small biotech company to make the leap to a large, vertically integrated pharmaceutical company it needs good technology, good drug candidates, a strong balance sheet, and access to growth capital. We now have all of these, and this is where we are headed.
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