Biotech Values

[iwfal]

New HCV drugs as monotherapy to compare to ifn as monotherapy:

Telapravir - in G1 patients naive to treatment every patient had more that log 2 reduction at day 14. But oddly the viral load was increasing from day 8 to day 14. So not clear that it is easily comparible since the viral kinetics appear to be different.

http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/2005icr/aasld/docs/111405_d.html

Ribavarin - as monotherapy it doesn't seem to do much. See:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7486483?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=2&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed

Finally note that it is going to be hard for people to experiment with drug cocktails when nothing is approved but ifn and ribavarin. So I wouldn't expect a lot of drug cocktail experimentation until several years after there are at least two potent different MOA drugs approved and on the market.

PS - An interesting question is whether 3x per day pills are preferable to self injection 1x per week. The answer isn't obvious to me.

Comments welcome!