Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

VRUS—I'm not following you on this. RG7128 showed excellent safety and efficiency in Genotypes 2&3 in phase-1 studies. What makes perfect sense?

RG7128 is badly suited for formulation in an all-in-one combination pill insofar as it requires a cumulative daily dose of 1,000-2,000 mg. It also requires BID administration, although this is probably a lesser drawback than the high dose.

Given that the geno-2/3 market is relatively small (compared to geno-1/4), Roche was already late in starting a phase-2b trial (compared to the geno-1/4 program), and the HCV market is moving toward all-oral regimens, an RG7128+interferon+ribavirin program for genotypes 2/3 is not especially compelling from a business standpoint, IMO.