Interesting slide in CGS’s presentation today. Cogstate worked with Acadia on the clinical trials and the measures used. The patients of Rett Syndrome are higher compromised - can’t walk, talk and no function over their hands.

Cogstate helped Acadia design assessments that measure improvements and then help regulators and insurance companies understand how these measures translate to meaningfully improvement in the lives of patients and carers.

@Nnyck777 good catch!

I had a look on the VHA website and my GUESS is as follows.

VHA is one of the largest integrated healthcare providers in the US. It covers over 9 million US services veterans. Add their dependents? So, I guess it provides healthcare for anywhere from 20 to 40 million Americans.

I guess that as Rett's sufferers within VHA coverage have started registering for Daybue, VHA has done an assessment of the potential demand and struck a deal with $ACAD. The contract for $330m provides an umbrella under which approved patients will be covered. So I imagine the contract doesn't equal a commitment to any fixed volume of sales over any defined timeframe. I guess that once it is used up, VHA will negotiate the next contract.

Revenue recognition will therefore only likely be as patients are approved and prescribed over time. I can see some online comments about people getting over-excited about $NEU booking their royalty share, but I am as close to 100% certain as I can be that things just don't work that way. Its a framework procurement deal which is common across the world for public sector contracts.

All that said, it is good news. It is proof that the US healthcare providers are gearing up to supply material volumes, as we assessed.

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At the risk of adding scutleutt on scuttlebutt, when trawling the dark depths of the web, I read a report from a recent conference where $ACAD have apparently said the following:

• Daybue selling ahead of expectation, but sticking to Q3 guidance; will issue guidance one Q ahead for the next few periods, then move to annual guidance
• Canada is next cab off the ranks, expected to take 18 months
• Europe likely two years, with possiblity that they will require some additonal data
• Japan will need some supplementary clinical data

I haven't checked my model, but I think this is a little later than I modelled, but easily offset if US goes gangbusters.

I'm going to sleep on whether VHA deal adds weight to materiality of the US prospects. Might be worth adding some more on the current pullback.

Next milestone: $ACAD Q3 results call at start of Nov.