Biotech Values

[rfj1862]

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.