LH: Licensed a Prostate Cx Test

I just saw this on Bloomberg. Interesting for a few reasons:

1. "Biomarker quintet".......5K anyone? Do I have a 6K anywhere (said like an auctioneer)...? Ok ok, these aren't specified as Kallekrein markers, but they are all proteins so what the heck.
2. "Labcorp has the exclusive US rights to develop and commercialize the test..." Does that mean that the test is not yet ready for prime time?
3. Most interesting is the fact that, last time I checked, this little company called Opko has a diagnostics unit. And within said unit, there is a proprietary test offered, called a 4K, that can be described as follows:

Physicians can identify patients with a high probability of having aggressive prostate cancer and offer appropriate treatment, while avoiding overtreatment of low-grade prostate cancer.
While the 4Kscore Test can’t provide a prostate cancer diagnosis, it can help physicians and their patients decide whether or not to perform a biopsy based on the probability of the patient having potentially life-threatening prostate cancer.


Hmm, now isn't that interesting. So, what does Opko offer to a company like Labcorp that Protomedix does not. Well, let's see:
1. Since Opko's management can't seem to forecast what they'll have for lunch (other than the standard coffee and bagel that comes with Steve Rubin's daily job requirement), it is not surprising that this same group of soothsayers can't guide investors on what to expect for service revenues for a calendar year. Nonetheless, using the bread crumb trail available to us, we know that the diagnostics division recorded $132.4 million in Q1 revenue. We also know that the company's crystal ball was clear enough to predict about that same amount of service revenue in Q2. So if we annualize those numbers, we get to about $530 million in diagnostics revenue for 2023.
2. From the animal entrails Adam Logal is instructed by Phil Frost to serve up as investors' daily bread, we would need to assume some pretty healthy service losses in Q2 (following the $40 million Q1 operating loss in that segment). But in a world of Opko Optimism, one might take encouragement from Elias Zerhouni's signposts that BRLI might turn a profit at some point this year. And, since we're clicking our heels, let's think in terms of BRLI being breakeven for all of 2023. 
3. Management has not deigned to give us specifics on the number of 4K tests performed on a quarterly basis in several years. But the last numbers put forth, from 2020 I think, were around 14,000 tests. My memory is foggy, but I seem to recall some higher numbers prior to that. And, in quarterly comments over the past year, Phil Frost has referred to 4K as doing very well.

So, whadda we got? We have a diagnostics business doing at least a half billion in revenue, within which is an established test for prostate cancer diagnosis, for which there is a record of reimbursement. Seems to me that, even considering redundant areas of business overlap, BRLI would make a nice tuck in acquisition for Labcorp. And they'd get an established in-market test in prostate cancer diagnostics that would not require any "development"; LH would simply make it a commercial success by folding it into their suite of urological offerings.

I am therefore rather perplexed, and perhaps a bit dismayed, that we are once again left standing at the altar. I suppose the silver lining is that Quest becomes the natural likely default suitor. The problem with that scenario is that LH has more cash on their balance sheet, and is about to become a lot more flush once Covance is spun off.

Once again, very little makes sense in the bizarre world of Options Galore Opko.

Good info. What does seem quite clear at this point is that my assessment years ago that 4K was the, or a, silver bullet in the fight against prostate cancer in general, and unnecessary biopsies, was quixotic.