Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

IDIX – Revealing tidbits from RDEA’s Piper Jaffray webcast:

During a barrage of uncommonly persistent questioning by PJ analyst Thomas Wei, RDEA’s CEO, Barry Quart, conceded that IDX899 is the one competitor to RDEA806 in the HIV/NNRTI arena that he is seriously concerned about.

Quart dismissed TMC278 from JNJ for its lack of potency, and he hinted that UK 453,061 from PFE may have been shunted to the back burner. (I reached more or less the same conclusion on PFE’s drug—see the prologue comments in #msg-26610262).

When the discussion turned to IDIX’s IDX899, Quart could not find anything negative to say about it! All he could muster in support of his own company’s drug is that RDEA806 has been tested in more people to date, which is true—barely.

Turning to the RDEA806 program itself, Quart publicly acknowledged for the first time that the start of the phase-2b trial, which was announced in October (#msg-33138650), will be delayed for an unspecified period so that RDEA can solicit input from prospective partners.

What does all this mean for IDIX? What we know is that both IDX899 and RDEA806 are fine drugs (#msg-31380545), both aim to supersede Sustiva as the NNRTI of choice in SoC HIV cocktails, both have completed phase-2a, and both are ready for partnering. It will be interesting to see which drug garners a more lucrative deal.