Avid Bioservices Inc (CDMO)

[north40000]

Exemplary of the problems discussed in the aforementioned article:

>>>A subset of targeted therapies involves shutting down the ability of cancer cells to evade the body’s immune response. Immunotherapy, as the treatments are called, was long seen as a failed approach until recent molecular breakthroughs. Now, the promise of immunotherapy is ratcheting up the stock prices of several companies that are developing drugs along these lines.

One of the first to get a drug in this class to market was Bristol-Meyers Squibb, with Yervoy. Even though the drug is only approved for advanced melanoma, an aggressive skin cancer, it grossed $960 million last year. A course of treatment goes for about $120,000. Bristol-Meyers also declined a request to comment on the issue of financial orphans.

Some of the financial orphans Global Cures identifies are believed to enhance the immune response to tumors. Without more study it is difficult to isolate exactly why they operate the way they do. Vidula Sukhatme says this is one of the chief complaints she and her husband receive from scientists who disagree with their approach. “They call them ‘dirty medicine,’” she says. “They say, ‘The whole world is going toward targeted therapies and you are going backwards.’”<<<