Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: PLX4032 addressable market

I have never heard of any treatment anywhere that creates even close to 40% incidence of a significant cancer within a few months. That in itself makes it interesting from a science standpoint. And I'd be surprised if other cancers didn't start popping up elsewhere given a more normal timeframe - unless somehow this the BRAF driven creation of cancer is unique to squamous cells (which seems unlikely to me). So this would seem to be a treatment that will always be a treatment of last resort (e.g. not prophylactic after resection of nodes).

This appears to be Roche’s view too. The phase-3 trial in progress (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT01006980 ) is restricted to patients with Stage IIIC or Stage IV disease.