Biotech Values

[woofer]

This isn't a technical answer, but it's about the best one I could find......

1) Kurt Graves, the Executive Vice President of Vertex answers a question, this being part of his response to a question about Telaprevir....

"Because in the study C208 not only are we seeing the highest on treatment response rates that we have ever seen with telaprevir to date over 80% for weeks. We are seeing the lowest discontinuation rates that we have seen in the study with telaprevir so far and that's because when we entered the study we see to it and our Phase 3 programs we have implemented the rash management program in those studies and are feeling good and hearing good things for investigators about how they are implementing that in the studies."
http://seekingalpha.com/article/119488-vertex-pharmaceuticals-incorporated-q4-2008-earnings-call-transcript?page=6

2) I'm guessing on this one, but since they doubled the dosage on some of the patients, perhaps they were/are less apt to get the fire in the hole because pruritus develops over time, not in the beginning stages of taking Telaprevir.

Quiz re Telaprevir’s “Fire in the Hole”

Recognizing that fire in the hole is a bona fide issue for Telaprevir-based regimens, VRTX introduced two wrinkles in the phase-3 trial designs to ameliorate this side effect. What are these two wrinkles?