Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Since we’re talking about HCV relapse, I’d like to give credit to VRTX for the design of the phase-2 Telaprevir + VX-222 trial that’s the subject of the board survey in #msg-50836757. A new twist in this trial is the *2-week* rule in the algorithm that specifies whether a given patient in one of the non-SoC arms will get treatment for 12 weeks (all-oral) or 36 weeks (12 weeks all-oral + 24 weeks SoC).

Requiring patients to have undetectable VL after only 2 weeks rather than the usual 4 weeks is plainly an attempt to minimize relapses following all-oral treatment. Whether this wrinkle will be consequential remains to be seen, but I think it’s a good piece of trial-design work by VRTX.