Biotech Values

[poorgradstudent]

INCY:

Thus, we can estimate that the 10 specific patients enrolled in the MRK-INCY combination trial would have had an ORR from Keytruda monotherapy of (0.2x0.41) + (0.5x0.13) + (0.3x0.19) = 20.4%.

I think this clarifies it nicely, thank you.

The slides do provide some additional data. There were 8 evaluable NSCLC patients, and of the three responders, 1 was PD-L1 negative, the other PD-L1 "pending" and the third was PD-L1 not evaluable. If anything, so far the responses are coming from the less likely cohorts.

All in all, this is what happens with small numbers and cursory reads of data. INCY was particularly vulnerable to this type of amplified over-reaction since, as we've discussed, the company was fully valued with a strong dose of perfection baked in.

If we're being super-critical, you could conjecture to say that MRK is not too thrilled with the NSCLC data; if they were, they would have started a P3 as they did for melanoma. But I would venture to say that's a strained perspective when you're only working off 8 evaluable patients.