Biotech Values

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But note that EXEL has been citing such efficacy metrics as unconfirmed partial responses and “disease control” rates, which have been mentioned from time to time on this board as red flags.

You have to look at each case. In EXEL case, there is no red flag. They put unconfirmed partial responses to SD, which is conservative and appropriate. It's also important to report DCR in RDT context when the trial is not done yet. These patients under DCR will continue the trial, either in continuation of open label portion, or in new randomized portion.

It's good to be skeptical in biotech. But I have to admit, XL184 RDT open label portion result so far is far beyond my expectation. It'll be exciting time for XL184 at ASCO 2011 when they report the result from randomized portion of RDT trial. It's reasonble to question why EXEL didn't conduct RDT trial before, and focused on MTC and GBM instead. You have to complement them for the decision to conduct RDT for XL184.