Biotech Values

[mcbio]

Re: ACHN Clinical Update CC

Thanks for the CC notes. Did you catch the name of the pumper at the end of the Q&A? He was really out there.

I went back and listened. I believe you're referring to Bruce O'Brien, the CEO of Daedalus Biotech Advisors (http://www.daedalusbiotech.com/about-team.html ).

Any thoughts on the clinical investigator's comments about ribavirin likely being able to be dosed QD? I think that's a pretty big deal if that is proven to be true and makes QD dosing for an HCV PI a very favorable attribute and likely a much bigger advantage over BID dosing than I previously envisioned.

I was beginning to get a little worried about the prospect of ACH-1625 being passed over in favor of the 3rd gen PIs like IDX320 and ACH-2684, but the following has given me renewed confidence in the drug: (1) the solid QD data for ACH-1625 at a dose lower than what I thought was going to be tested in this final Phase 1b cohort (600mg QD as opposed to 1000mg QD) coupled with the potential for ACHN to possibly test an even lower dose QD cohort in Phase 2a; (2) the talk about how the sustained viral suppression may mean that ACH-1625 is less prone to resistance development; and (3) the fact that the theoretical advantage of 3rd gen HCV PIs being less prone to resistance development compared to ACH-1625 may not even be as big of a deal given that the PIs are likely going to be combined with other HCV drug classes anyways, which should by itself reduce resistance development to some degree (and again, ACH-1625 itself may turn out to be less prone to resistance development given the sustained viral suppression pattern).