Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

THLD – I'm wondering if solid tumors treated with a compound like avastin - thereby causing the tumors to become hypoxic - then treated with a HAP (Hypoxia-Activated Prodrug) like TH-302 for instance, might make therapeutic sense?

This is essentially the idea that OXGN touted several years ago for combination treatment with Avastin + Zybrestat (f/k/a/ CA4P), but I don’t think it amounted to a hill of beans.

In the phase one trials for TH-302, a patient was treated previously with avastin and that person showed a major reduction in tumor volume (I believe it was over 85% based on RECIST). I'm wondering if the effect of the anti-angiogenesis drug making the tumor more hypoxic made the HAP drug even more effective...

Amazing tumor shrinkages occur all the time in open-label cancer trials, so I would never invest in a company based on this alone. If THLD thinks TH-302 is synergistic with Avastin, the obvious step is to run a randomized 3-arm trial of Avastin vs TH-302 vs Avastin+TH-302. If THLD does have explicit plans to run such a trial, I would infer that THLD’s scientists themselves don’t strongly believe in this kind of synergy.