Biotech Values

[iwfal]

MDVN - Dimebon

Interestingly, results of the 1st 6 month Ph 3 symptomatic trial in Mild to moderate AD for Dimebon are due in Jan 2010. If these results are as positive as the russian ph 2 results, it may change the face of AD drug development as dimebon may quickly be part of the SoC placebo arms.

I would disagree. I don't see the January results as the interesting ones. At 26 weeks the Russian Dimebon trial did about the same as existing treatments in ADAS-cog and MMSE. I would argue it is the 52 week extension study that was the intriguing data out of the Russian study since, unlike existing treatments, the improvement over placebo continued to grow. So it won't be until the later studies mature that the AD world will have a new SOC.


Comments welcome.

PS The other argument made in favor of Dimebon is that it showed improvement over a wide variety of different measurements, which as the authors of the Lancet study point out, has never happened before in one study. But I would suggest that is random luck or not even measuring them in previous trials - since at 26 weeks the Dimebon measurements are about on par with SOC.