Biotech Values

[mcbio]

Re: ACHN/Dr. Dietrich

I thought that section of the CC was mostly spin. Dr. Dietrich’s comments about ribavirin’s long half-life and possible qD dosing do not ring true, IMO; ribavirin is dosed BID because splitting the cumulative daily dose into halves reduces side effects compared to taking the entire daily amount at once.

Perhaps ribavirin can be dosed at a much smaller QD amount when combined with direct-acting anti-virals. No idea if that's feasible, but just offering that as a possibility.

All told, despite his credentials as a clinician, I thought Dietrich came across on the ACHN CC as a shill rather than an objective observer. I’d like to know how much ACHN paid Dietrich for participating on the CC and why ACHN thought they needed to have Dietrich’s endorsement rather than simply letting the data do the talking.

Point taken. But I do think the data itself is very impressive.

What I really like about ACHN right now is that, outside of general market risk, the next binary event that could materially drive the share price down is most likely the release of Phase 2a results for ACH-1625 in 1Q2011. In the meantime, you have the prospect of a significant partnership or, though much less likely, a buyout, among other things, that could drive the share price higher. Obviously, if ACHN starts the Phase 2a trial on its own without a partner, that could cause some degree of sell-off in the stock. However, I like the risk-reward here at ~$100M market cap.