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Well this has been...a day and its not quite over
The best part of all this are all of the investigations initiated by sleazy law firms because of the Muddy Waters report.
SGEN IMGN GMAB etc. Since I'm deeply bored with ENTA I was thinking about whether companies developing ADCs a good investment bet. My biotech portfolio has been doing a hell of a lot better than ever before by really thinking through things that I *do not* like rather than the latest sweetest technology or therapeutic area. I'm going to post all the things I hate here at some point just for fun, there's no point in Twittering it. I think I already posted about why I hate gene therapy (as an investment, not as a technology).
ADCs are an undeniably effective strategy in oncology. But the ADC space is *exceedingly* crowded. It’s crowded because ADCs are easy compared to other technologies: identify a selectively expressed biomarker, conjugate a cytotoxin or radioligand to it, and see what happens. The development pathway is not incredibly challenging vs other types of therapy.
For this reason, there is a plethora of ADCs and hundreds more in pipelines. Again, I think ADCs are awesome clinically, but investable? Not really. Not unless someone identifies a really novel target. CD19, CD20, BCMA, etc are played out in hematology. There are many other very crowded ADC targets. Also regardless of target I don't think you are ever going to find one that is absolutely unique to tumors so you are always going to get significant off-target toxicities.
My point is that if you are going to invest in ADCs, do some research on the viability of the target. Is it unique? Is it clearly expressed at a higher level on tumors than in normal tissue? If it is expressed elsewhere, where, what level, and what is the impact of targeting that tissue as a bystander?
Don’t fall for companies that claim their conjugate is unique/different. Yeah it might make a difference but it isn’t nearly as important as the target.
Hilarious
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VKTX X-ALD results coming in the next few months. X-ALD is the most common peroxisomal disorder. In the US it affects about 50,000 people in the United States alone. 50,000 potential patients is not a trivial population. The market cap of ALXN ($40B) largely attributable to eculizumab and ravulizumab, which are treatments for PNH (Total population in US: 5000 patients). Based on the valuation of ALXN, the potential X-ALD indication for VK2014 alone could potentially be worth billions in market cap.
If successful in Phase 1, Phase 2 trials will quickly enroll and, given that there are few treatment options for X-ALD, this actually could be VKTX’s first product to market.
LOL you just helped me with my real job. I am going to have to send you a commission.
I will follow you Roy that way you will get at least 3 views per tweet
But yeah Twitter seems somewhat pointless, especially now that if you don't buy a blue check ain't nobody gonna see your tweet.
ARAV
Phase 2 RCC data from ARAV at ASCO.
https://meetings.asco.org/abstracts-presentations/218139
Looks promising although difficult to interpret. They have a P3 in PROC that should report in the next few months that will be the make-or-break moment for this company.
I have been thinking a lot about the viability of oncology as an investment space. My current thinking is that it's not a great place to be for any investor. Precision medicine is killing oncology as a viable investment because it requires new drugs to target smaller and smaller niches of already rare subsets of tumors. It's great for patients but the types of tumor-agnostic agents that make enough money to justify development costs are going to be few and far between.
This is why I bought ARAV. I acknowledge that it is extremely high risk but if the PROC results are positive the drug will have broad applicability rather than being targeted at, for example, 0.5% of patients with a specific tumor type or harbor that actionable mutation.
In any case I'm prepared for zero or hero; I have a trivial amount invested so I'll barely notice the loss if it occurs.
LOL from the Street
I think the acquisition will go through, whether there is a legitimate issue here or not.
Big pharma develops very little for themselves, and blocking acquisitions would destroy these companies. And of course they have a huge, powerful lobby. Plus they have the advantage that almost all big pharmas employ huge numbers of people in Democratic states like Illinois, California, NJ, Connecticut, and New York -- so the politicians that would normally be opposed to this (Democrats) will keep their noses out of it.
OT but I think one of the main reasons why big pharma has never really felt the political hammer is for that very reason.
Looks like Pharma Father read this and then plagiarized it:
https://shorturl.at/wKO45
Which has more insight in it than a few posts on Twitter
This is a Datamonitor report, nothing suspicious. If anyone wants to read this and prefers to register etc:
https://pharmaintelligence.informa.com/resources/product-content/insight-into-nash-pricing-strategies
Who knew that a race to rock-bottom generic drug prices would lead to multiple companies withdrawing from that market?
I assume that the next update from VKTX will be a partner for VK2809. The company has clearly stated that they have no intention of taking this to market themselves.
The question is, who? ABBV, NVS, and PFE are my top candidates for partners. I would especially like to see PFE as they are by far the best at driving drugs through trials and are the best marketers by a long shot (okay I'm biased because I was involved with Lipitor for a decade)
***Edit: I was just informed that the company said yesterday that they could partner or go it alone. I got up late yesterday and missed the call
VKTX
The results are super, but seems like a big ol' yawn in the premarket.
Hopefully I was wrong about this not being viewed as a major binary any more.
I don't think there is a physiologic reason, I suspect it is for the same reason that CV outcomes have historically been less good for women than men--heart disease has tended to be overlooked and manifests somewhat differently in women, thus they often present with more advanced disease.
I feel like this trial is a little bit of a gimmick and also wouldn't provide any evidence for a sex differential obviously.
VKTX
I guess the question for me is how much upside vs downside does the VK2809 trial have for VKTX at this point? I'm guessing the upside will be surprisingly limited given that the focus is on VK2735. Downside is maybe 50%.
I have been accumulating shares at everything from ~$1.50 to $9.00 between 2017 and late last year so as you might imagine I have a significant investment here at this point. I'm confident enough to hold through 2809 results and will continue to hold even if the 2809 results are less than spectacular.
VKTX I feel like this is the week for VK2809 results. It would make sense based on the enrolment date of the last patient in the Phase 2B study; 4-5 weeks after last follow-up visit is *more than enough* to analyze and report the results of a small clinical trial.
VK2809 results were previously do or die. I can't believe I'm saying this given my excitement about NASH results, but they've become almost a sideshow vs VK2735. Downside is limited even if VK2809 is a bust (unlikely). Holding through binary!
LOL I'm so obsessed with tracking VKTX and TGTX that I didn't even notice that BIO fell 18% due to missed targets and lower guidance
Oh good just what we need, more MM therapeutics.
I sometimes get a little irritated by all the activity in MM. It's driven by an incredibly aggressive and active foundation with strong links to the pharmaceutical industry rather than any rational considerations, and it has sucked funding and pharma dollars out of many other worthy areas. MM is a rare disease but you wouldn't know it based on the number of therapeutics and activity in this space.
Count me out on investing in heme/onc period in fact.