Biotech on the Blockchain?

Bloomberg: In a novel approach for the biotechnology industry, small-cap company Agenus Inc. is aiming to raise $50 million to $100 million by issuing digital securities backed by future sales of an experimental cancer drug.

The digital securities will allow investors to bet on future sales of single products and will have a limited impact on shareholders’ equity, the company said. Agenus plans to offer at least 25 million of what it calls biotech electronic security tokens, or BESTs, to certain high-net-worth individuals and institutional investors starting Feb. 15.

I find this puzzling. First, why break out one drug from the rest of the firm? Investors generally want diversification and this is the opposite. Agenus is basically saying the rest of the firm is a value suck. Second, one of the virtues of the blockchain is that it allows for easy trade but the SEC requires that to buy these securities you must be an accredited investor and as such there are typically encumbrances on transfer. Thus, putting the securities on the blockchain doesn’t lower transaction costs, the way it could for other assets.

A lot of assets will be tokenized (i.e. securitized on the blockchain) in the future so this is an area to watch but to succeed tokenization must increase diversification and reduce transaction costs and this tokenization does neither.