Biotech Values

[dewophile]

It would have been more surprising IMO if VX-222/Telaprevir didn't experience viral breakthrough without SOC because both classes (non-nuke/PI) have a documented low barrier of resistance to mutation.

vrtx and bmy were on the same page here - both tried to use 2 very high potency drugs to achieve quick and profound suppression that viral mutants would have time to form. BMY's PI/NS5A failed (albeit in a more difficult to treat population), so it's not surprising that vrtx failed with this same strategy. but i wouldn't say it was doomed from the start (although any regimen wihtout ribavirin i think IS doomed because i just can't see why achieving PCR negativity at the end of treatment with DAAs would be any different than with other non-rib-containing trials that consistently failed due to relapse)

Now VRTX has to look to ribavirin to salvage their strategic shortcomings in oral development (good luck

i agree its a long shot, but worth taking imo. i am interested to see frankly if rib has meaningful activity in the absence of interferon

Seven day PSI-939 monotherapy has shown greater efficacy than PSI-7128/RG7227 without SOC. So the 2ND generation guanine nuke has better efficacy than the the first generation nuke plus a PI. There is no reason to believe a two drug combo isn't still viable

i can buy that - and i didn't mean to necessarily agree that it will take 3 drugs - just market perception may be headed that way leading to increased demand for complementary DAAs, perhaps explaining some of the moves in these stocks

in fact in order to develop resistance to some high barrier drugs like nukes you need more than one mutation - so you can almost think of a nuke as double (or tripe,..) therapy (e.g. baraclude i think requires 3 mutations)