Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: MRK’s phase-2 results in treatment-naïve GT1

It’s somewhat misleading that many newswires are reporting a headline SVR12 number of 98% (43/44) from the 12w non-ribavirin arm of the C-WORHY study. Since the 12w arm with ribavirin from the same study had a lower SVR12 rate (80/85=94%) than the 12w arm without ribavirin, it makes more sense to report the combined results from the two 12w arms, which is 95% (123/129).

95% SVR12 in treatment-naïve GT1 patients without cirrhosis is still a very good result, of course, but there’s a non-trivial difference between 95% and 98%.