Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: Economic relevance of HIV lines of therapy

>Do you happen to know the fraction of the HIV market which involves treatment-naive patients?<

In #msg-25207136 I posted that the rough breakdown was 1/3 treatment-naïve and 2/3 treatment-experienced. However, the proportion of the market from the first line is steadily rising because the first-line therapies are now so darn effective that many patients stay on the first-line regimen for a decade or longer. For a typical patient, the combined duration of the first line and second line will be more than a decade.

Consequently, HIV drugs that cannot target first- or second-line therapy will be relegated to being commercial dogs. To be serious candidates for the first- or second-line settings, new drugs must be qD, have minimal incremental toxicity when added to Truvada, and must have a high barrier to resistance that requires multiple mutations (unlike, for example, Sustiva).