Военный контракт на $41 млн спас биотех iX Biopharma после краха лицензионной сделки

Developing a new medicine is only part of the journey. Turning it into a treatment that reaches patients depends just as much on finding the right commercial pathway. For iX Biopharma, that pathway disappeared in late 2023 when its licensing partnership for its lead drug candidate Wafermine came to an end. The setback did not change the company’s belief in what it had built. After the licensing rights reverted to the company in 2024, the team moved decisively to reassess its commercial strategy and engage widely with prospective partners. As the team explored its next steps, chairman and CEO Eddy Lee encouraged them to keep an open mind. Chief commercial officer Eva Tan recalled: “During a briefing on funding options, he asked to add a new slide to the deck: a picture of a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. And his message to the board was: ‘How do you know we won’t pull a rabbit out of the hat?’” Months later, those efforts opened an avenue the company had not anticipated. The United States Department of Defense (DoD), which had identified Wafermine as a potential solution for battlefield pain management, awarded iX Biopharma its first US military contract – a US$41 million (S$53 million) award to complete the programme’s development. The funding also paves the way to pursue early deployment of the drug on the battlefield through an emergency use authorisation (EUA). For the company, the contract represented more than funding. It reinforced iX Biopharma’s belief in Wafermine’s potential to address an unmet need, as well as the drug delivery technology platform behind it. “We’re not from one of the traditional global biotech centres such as Boston or San Diego, and we’re not a large pharmaceutical company with unlimited capital,” said Ms Tan. “Yet our technology was assessed on its merits and selected for a mission-critical programme. That’s what makes this milestone meaningful to us: What we built from Singapore has demonstrated its relevance on the global stage.” A PLATFORM DESIGNED FOR LONG-TERM VALUE Founded in 2008 and listed on Singapore Exchange’s Catalist board in 2015, iX Biopharma was built around WaferiX, its proprietary drug-delivery platform. Rather than discovering entirely new medicines, the company reformulates those with established safety profiles into wafers that dissolve beneath the tongue. By improving how existing drugs are delivered, the approach helps reduce the time, cost and risk involved in developing new treatments. Wafermine is the platform’s most advanced application, reformulating ketamine into a non-opioid treatment for moderate-to-severe acute pain. It is one of around 40 formulations built on the same technology and was developed in response to the need for alternatives to opioids in managing severe acute pain. The drug’s fast-dissolving wafer format also makes it well suited to emergency and military settings. It requires no needles, refrigeration or specialised administration – qualities that would later align closely with the DoD’s requirements for battlefield pain management. A DIFFERENT PATH TO MARKET The DoD contract also changed how iX Biopharma could commercialise Wafermine. Previously, the company had expected to license the programme after Phase 2 trials, as many biotech firms do to fund the costly later stages of development. Instead, the contract now allows iX Biopharma to take Wafermine through the capital-intensive Phase 3 trials while retaining ownership. This could enable the company to secure much greater value when it eventually licenses the drug. It also supports the company’s planned EUA pathway. If authorised by the US Food and Drug Administration, it could allow the drug to be supplied to the US military before full approval. In the longer term, iX Biopharma sees opportunities in the wider non-opioid pain management market, with licensing discussions expected to follow. To support those ambitions, iX Biopharma is expanding its US presence, establishing a manufacturing joint venture and relocating wafer production there. It is targeting an EUA in 2027, followed by Phase 3 trial readouts in 2028 and subsequent licensing discussions. WHAT IS VALUE UNLOCK? The Value Unlock initiative by SGX and MAS encourages listed companies to take a more deliberate approach to identifying, communicating and realising long-term value. How companies can benefit: - Improve investor understanding of business strengths and growth opportunities - Build confidence through greater transparency, stronger governance and clearer communication - Strengthen positioning for partnerships, acquisitions and expansion - Support long-term resilience through a clearer focus on value creation - Improve access to capital by helping markets better understand future growth potential CREATING VALUE BEYOND THE LAB While the contract changed Wafermine’s trajectory, it also prompted iX Biopharma to reassess where value existed across the wider business. Until then, much of the company’s story had centred on Wafermine. But alongside its lead drug programme sat another opportunity: a growing portfolio of consumer health formulations, ranging from hormone therapies and peptides to longevity products. Unlike Wafermine, which follows the traditional pharmaceutical development pathway, many of these formulations can already reach patients through licensed US compounding pharmacies and the company’s WaferiX telehealth platform. Taken together, they showed that iX Biopharma was no longer building a single business, but two complementary growth engines operating on different timelines. “Wafermine remains our long-term pharmaceutical business, and is now progressing towards commercialisation,” said Ms Tan. “Alongside that, our consumer health business gives us an opportunity to generate revenue, real-world data and future licensing opportunities today. Combined under a single valuation, one obscures the other; valued separately, both can be developed to their full potential.” That thinking led to the creation of Ligo Pharma, a standalone consumer health business designed to give each part of the portfolio its own strategic focus, capital structure and growth pathway. WHEN SCIENCE ISN’T THE WHOLE STORY For years, iX Biopharma communicated its business much like many biotech companies do – leading with scientific data and clinical milestones, trusting the science to speak for itself. The DoD contract reinforced something the company had long believed: Scientific progress alone does not determine a biotech company’s value. Equally important is helping investors understand the commercial opportunities, strategic choices and long-term growth that emerge from that science. That broader perspective also changed how iX Biopharma thinks about growth itself. Looking back, Ms Tan views the collapse of the licensing partnership as the point when the company began pursuing a different path to market for a programme it had always believed in. “If I had to draw one lesson from our journey,” she said, “it is that opportunity seldom announces itself; more often, it hides inside a setback. The instinct to look again, rather than walk away, is what has opened each new chapter for the company.”