Biotech Values

[mcbio]

Re: ACHN Clinical Update CC

While I agree that it appeared that the results were being severely pumped (dietrich joking about Mount Sinai being used as a potential trial site may not have helped), it appeared that ACHN mainly had dietrich over to provide a different perspective. An impressive number of analysts from pretty much all the major firms called in and the first question was addressed to Dietrich so his presence was useful.

Yeah, the joking about the use of Mount Sinai didn't do much in the way of establishing independence for him on the call. It was an interesting call, though, and I thought his comments about ACH-1625 behaving more like a nuke than a PI in terms of resistance profile were interesting. It's obviously very early stages still and, again, you have to consider his likely biased viewpoint, but the comment was at least interesting.

I wonder though whether they would be able to get good terms when a potential partner knows that a next gen PI is waiting in the wings.

I was starting to share these concerns myself, but I think you have to remember that the main perceived advantage of the 3rd gen PIs has been a better resistance profile. (They will in all likelihood be more potent and be able to be dosed at a lower QD dose as well, but the data for ACH-1625 at the 600mg QD dose, with the potential to go lower in the Phase 2a trials, has me much less concerned on this front.) The talk about the early resistance profile pattern for ACH-1625 in terms of slow viral rebound (behaving more like a nuke than a traditional PI) and the fact that I think that the attribute of being less resistance prone may be of less importance when the PIs are going to be combined with other direct-acting anti-virals, which should lessen the chance of resistance development anyways. That's not to say that the 3rd gen PIs won't likely improve to some degree on resistance development, but the foregoing has me less concerned that potential partners are just going to overlook 1625 in favor of a 3rd gen PI.

It seems to me a potential partner would also want a part of a next gen compound in addition to the current one.

Luckily ACHN has its own 3rd gen HCV PI in ACH-2684. Management has stated before that some of their potential partners have inquired about both 1625 and 2684 as part of partnering discussions, but ACHN only plans to do a package partnership for both compounds if the economics are extremely good. The plan appears to be to partner both compounds separately, but we'll see how that plays out in reality. I wouldn't be surprised if a potential partnership is one deal with a big pharma company encompassing both compounds. As long as it's a lucrative one, I would be fine with that.