Interesting article by F6 on Investors Village for the Hepalink perspective.

From the article - Shanghai, April 17, 2014 ... Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised Shenzhen Hepalink Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd, a Chinese pharmaceutical company formed in 1998 and listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in May 2010, and its US subsidiary Hepalink USA Inc. on the US$337.5 million acquisition of Scientific Protein Laboratories, LLC, a leading global, independent manufacturer and supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).

I haven't had the chance to study Shenzhen Hepalink in any detail. I had assumed they are a 1 trick pony with billions of $ in revenue and profit but in need of extending their product portfolio. It would seem the purchase of Scientific Protein Laboratories USA gives them high quality production capabilities and I'm assuming research facilities. If anyone knows please clarify the significance.

I've been very critical of Don over the years and now I am beginning to realize he is a brilliant chess player. Hepalink needs rvx-208 to extend their portfolio. The RVX current deal may only be their (Hepalink's) 1st foray into RVX (just testing the waters with a 13% position and a seat on the board).

Hepalink may be very interested in the large portfolio that Zenith will be able to spin out from it's multiple and growing set of epigenetic scaffolds. Having a close relationship with RVX will keep them close to Zenith.

If Don pulls off a couple more large regional deals (particularly of the Hepalink go to BETonMACE and go to market characteristics) he will have created either a transformative business model for rvx-208 and/or huge leverage in regards to traditional big pharma. He will hold the negotiating club in his hands. Don has stated the regional strategy in the RVX platform for a number of years. This is not new and now he has proven that he can do it and surely there will be more. rvx-208 (and the Crestor/rosuvastatin patents) provides leverage for those pharma's that may be big regionally and need to extend their portfolios thus gaining their own leverage vis a vis BP.

Perhaps he does not need AZ anymore!

I've criticized Don's low profile in the past but that (profile) is changing rapidly on both the investment and scientific fronts because they now understand the MOA of rvx-208 better (due to the Emerald Logic FACET predictive modelling and the cellular analysis, etc) and are confident to get out there and let everyone know.

The 77% RRR in patients with diabetes mellitus with CVD and low HDL achieved in the ASSURE/SUSTAIN trials addresses a huge problem which is the American obesity epidemic which in a large part has been fuelled by sugar consumption. This is a huge and growing market. (from Sept 2, 2014 - These observed reductions in MACE may stem from the ability of RVX-208 to significantly improve specific biomarkers of CVD risk measured in the SUSTAIN and ASSURE trials, including: higher levels of ApoA-I protein (p<0.01), an increase in HDL-C (p<0.001), more large HDL-particles (p<0.05) and growth in HDL particle size (p<0.05). The significant improvement in these biomarkers was in treated patients vs. placebo, which point to the beneficial effects of RVX-208 on reverse cholesterol transport).

The more I think of it Don has been a very successful chess player for the past 15 years winning many chess games in financing, attracting talent, bringing in resources such as Eastern, NGN and now Shenzhen Hepalink and I'm convinced he has at least the next set of moves well worked out. There is a reason why Don is being paid $500,000 a year. There is also many reason why Don is still CEO. Eastern and NGN could replace him if they wanted to.

The other part of the chess game is the science and huge amounts of credit must be given to Dr Wong because, of course, he has been there since the beginning and began to realize the epigenetic approach was the key to drug development over 10 years ago and thus is way ahead of the market. Academic scientists and BP are now getting on the band wagon. It was Dr Wong's epigenetic approach that resulted in Zenith and we know that Zenith, while starting with 2 drug candidates, has developed many scaffolds for epigenetic drugs in cancer and other indications.

We should keep in mind that the share price is still suffering from the ASSURE trial shock in spite of 15 years of constant success and many highly significant results from ASSURE.

So GLTA and all IMHO.

Cheers

Toinv :)