Idenix Pharmaceuticals (IDIX)

[DewDiligence]

I think you should stick with IDIX’s guidance of $4M per year in royalties. If the royalties end up increasing in 2010 or 2011, that will be nice but I would not count on it.

As far as I can tell, NVS is not actively selling Tyzeka (despite mentioning it in a webcast slide) because the cost of maintaining an antiviral specialty salesforce is not worth it when there is only a single drug to sell. Note that GILD and BMY, the main competitors in the HBV market, each has multiple antiviral drugs to sell.

If NVS builds an antiviral salesforce in the future to support an HCV drug such as Albuferon, you may see an uptick in Tyzeka sales. But, again, I would not count on this.