Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Does interferon have a bright future in HCV? GILD, the world’s leading antiviral company, does not think so, evidently.

Instead of pursuing a phase-3 trial of GS9190 (GILD’s non-nucleoside polymerase inhibitor) in combination with peg-ifn and ribavirin, GILD has refocused the GS9190 program to pursue combination therapy with GS9256, GILD’s newly disclosed protease inhibitor. GILD is currently conducting drug-interaction studies of these two agents. Full-fledged efficacy studies of the GS9190+GS9256 combination are expected to begin in 1H10.

In other words, GILD now has an in-house all-oral HCV program to compete with Roche’s all-oral program that employs ITMN-191 from ITMN and RG7128 from VRUS. IDIX, which has in-house HCV drugs from the three main classes (nuke, non-nuke, PI) is also moving in this direction, although it remains far behind Roche and GILD.

Who are the main losers from all this? HGSI, Biolex, and ZGEN/BMY, IMO; these are the companies that have interferon-based HCV drug candidates.

(Source: GILD's 3Q09 CC today)