Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: ACH-1625 half-life and trustworthiness of ACHN management

The EASL/2010 poster on ACH-1625’s pharmacokinetics (http://www.achillion.com/PL/pdf/ach1625_clinica.pdf ) says the half-life for a single administration of ACH-1625 is 8-11 hours, which is not especially long. The poster does not give the steady-state half-life nor does it give the half-life after multiple (pre-steady-state) days of dosing.

I do not yet take at face value the assertions that ACH-1625 has “a slow viral rebound” and that it “is more like a nuke than a PI” in terms of its barrier to resistance (see middle of #msg-50213557). Just because ACHN-1625 patients did not experience viral breakthroughs during a relatively short trial does not mean that there is anything unique about this drug, although I suppose it’s possible.

I remain skeptical of many of the things ACHN’s management—and its hired hands such as Dr. Douglass Dietrich—have been telling investors about the company’s HCV candidates. A prime example of this was management’s original claim that ACH-2684 (the follow-on drug to ACH-1625) belonged to a whole new HCV drug class; it turns out that ACH-2684 is merely a PI with a very long half-life (paragraph 9 in #msg-46160360) whose MoA is the same as any other PI.

When I see evidence that ACHN’s management is not simply pumping the company’s prospects to raise the share price, I’ll happily change my tune. Until then, I’m not especially bullish on this name. I do not own the stock in real life, although I do have it in my SI charity portfolio. Regards, Dew