Biotech Values

[tinkershaw]

EXEL: Is there anything unique to EXEL's tyrosine kinase inhibitor that distinguishes them from other TKI's? There seems to be handfuls of companies studying TKI's with limited success.

19/20 patients available for review had substantial regression of cancer progression in their bones from bone scans. Something utterly unprecedented.

Whether or not this is reduction in tumors, stable disease, or whtever, it is unprecedented, and the pain relief being reported gives ample reason to believe that something medically relevant and more than just run of the mill is occurring here. Duration results will tell us just how valuable this might become in the future as there is little knowledge as to the duration of the effect. But there is ample data showing some unprecedented effect - whatever that may lead to in a practical medical sense. On the other hand, I don't believe in waiting until everything is known when you see a drug behaving in a remarkable way like this. True, it may turn out to be a fluke, but the market always remains cynical until after the fact, and this creates for enormous upside potential, as long as you can take the possible downside risk. From what I have seen, this drug is clearly doing something, so I'm willing to take that risk, as I think the risk is less than the market is discounting, but I'm prone to being disappointed. I did the same thing with telaprevir and tysabri, but admittedly, this drug is more difficult to say, right now, it really works like we hope it works, but it does clearly seem to work at doing something.

More proof and data will give more color as to what is going on.

Whether or not other companies have similar products coming up the pipeline, perhaps, but they are behind EXEL presently in that pipeline, which is the lead agent of that type. I am sure, given the results that EXEL is reporting, that others will want to explore similar compounds in the future.

However, it appears analogous to me as to whether or not there is something "unique" about telaprevir, after all, many other companies are pursuing the same type of drug, or Bydureon from AMLN, as many other companies are pursuing GLP-1s. Always someone pursuing something. First to market with a new and ground breaking drug is always worth a fortune, a fortunte that later drugs will try to cut a piece of the pie for themselves.

Tinker