nice trade, tony. ARIA bounced hard off it's 200 dma last wedn and then the upgrades provided good follow thru on Friday.
I've followed the company for a number of years (lots of fits and starts) but only started accumulating a significant position at the end of last year. imo, the CEO has some issues but the science is sound and the pipeline is real so I'm keeping a core position intact. Based on the abstract released today, I believe a AP534 partnership may be the next value driver. That and some clarity on the MRK partnership, which should be forthcoming, should reduce the financial uncertainty that I believe is keeping the pps on hold for now.
Of course the big milestone is the SUCCEED trial results.In fact a comparison of the Phase 2 rida trial and the Phase 3 trial design is what originally got me interested in the company. Specifically, 61 of the 212 patients in the Phase 2 trial achieved CBR; these patients had a PFS rate at six months of 70% and median PFS of 36 weeks. The PFS rate in this patient subset was nearly triple that of the overall population." The overall (100%) population achieved a 24% PFS. But 29% (61/212) of the patients achieved a 70% PFS, which means the remaining 71% (151/212) of the patients achieved a PFS of only 5% to 6%. (29%*70%PFS) + (71%*X) = 24% PFS solving for X = 5.4%. So in one set of patients ridaforolimus achieves a 70% pfs while in another it's in the single digits.
So the key is to identify those patient populations that will most likely benefit from ridaforolimus which is precisely why the patient enrollment in Phase 3 was different than that in Phase 2. In the Phase 2 trial, eligible patients had "a broad range of metastatic and/or unresectable soft-tissue and bone sarcomas, at least 90% of whom had progressive disease." The fact that patients enrolled in the Phase 3 trial are disease stable following a favorable response to chemotherapy means that we may be in for a surprise to the upside once the interim results are released.
