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We all saw the crazy reaction to the Merck/Moderna melanoma combo (Intismeran + Keytruda), causing both stocks to surge.
I saw a breakdown from Goldman Sachs on the Peak sales estimate for the melanoma indication alone, which is about $4.3 billion a year, split 50/50 between the two companies. That's all the actual revenue opportunity from what they announced was successful.
But look at what happened to the stocks. Merck added roughly $43 billion in market cap. Moderna went from about $25 billion to $69 billion, nearly tripling in a single session. Combined, that's tens of billions of dollars in new market value chasing a program worth a few billion a year in sales.
So why did the market act like that? Because the market wasn't just pricing in melanoma sales, it was pricing in validation, proof that the platform works and that the same combination approach can now (potentially) be pointed at other cancers. And even then, that's a platform built around one cancer vaccine for now, tailored to one tumor type at a time.
Now look at what Alpha Tau is actually sitting on. The Alpha DaRT treatment is not a single indication play. It's a radiation platform that can be delivered into any solid tumor, regardless of tumor type or location. The AHNS data in head and neck cancer showed 100% Response Rate when combined with Keytruda (In comparison to 19% for Keytruda on its own), and that's just one of many tumor types already in trials, alongside pancreatic cancer, GBM (glioblastoma), skin cancers, and more. The mechanism doesn't change from cancer to cancer. The device goes in, the alpha particles do the same job (physics), wherever the tumor is.
If a single melanoma combo announcement is worth close to $90 billion in combined market value expansion for two companies limited to that one cancer vaccine, what should a platform with data already showing efficacy across multiple solid tumor types, plus a validated Keytruda combination signal in one of the toughest indications, be worth for the company that's still trading at a fraction of that number.
DRTS isn't betting on one tumor type proving out, it's already running the experiment across several, with a platform designed from the start to apply anywhere a solid tumor exists. That's the difference between a single shot on goal and a platform that has many shots on goal and is even complementary to what is already working and has proven to improve it.
I have a long position in DRTS, this is not financial advice, do your own research.