Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: Factoids on the US HCV reservoir

Pool of chronically infected individuals: your 3.8M number is within the range of 3.2-4.0M from credible sources. 1.0-1.2M of these individuals are thought to be diagnosed.

New chronic infections per year: your 25K number is spot on, IMO.

New treatments per year: 71K, according to a 2007 DataMonitor report, which is within round-off error from your 75K figure.

>1) Right now we are NOT curing patients very significantly faster than newly infected patients are entering the pool<

71K treatments and a somewhat optimistic 40% cure rate gives 28.4K cures. Using what is IMO a more realistic 35% cure rate (treatment in the real world is not as effective as in the clinical trials cited in the ifn/ribavirin labels) gives ~25K cures per year, implying that the US HCV reservoir is close to a steady-state equilibrium.

>2) The pool is becoming enriched with treatment resistant - at a substantial, but not huge, rate.<

The size of the treatment-failure pool in 2007 was 250-400K individuals. The wide range may be due to variability in the definition.

Nice number-crunching job, Clark. Regards, Dew