Biotech Values

[tinkershaw]

It’s touting a metric—“bone-scan resolution”—that isn’t precisely defined and hasn’t been cited in previous peer-reviewed studies.

I agree, there is ambiguity in bone scans. But I still hold, the reason for no peer reviewed data is that nothing has ever produced bone scan results approaching anything close to what is being seen with XL184.

I do think it is a fair question to ask, "so what?". As that is the real question to be answered. What do these bone scans really mean? But I am not so much holding the lack of peer-reviewed data against EXEL at this time, because it is my understanding (and this comes from the December conference call from EXEL in which the experts discussed the issue, my anecdotal knowledge, and my lay knowledge of the progression and prognosis of this disease once it hits the bone (as I understood that resolution once it hits the bone is rarely ever seen).

So the question is still open, "so what?" but the lack of peer review data on the subject is not so concerning to me given the unprecedented data that has been shown on the bone scans. There simply was never anything similar to produce a historical analog.

As for the drug being passed up, it would not be unprecedented for big pharma to pass up on something good. This is not big pharma, but the biggest incident in the history of business is Xerox giving windows technology to Apple. It happens. But as to why it was passed up is pure speculation, and is reason to be more skeptical but I don't think it necessarily clouds the clinical data seen to date. It is the "so what" information that needs to be further answered in regard to what these bone scans mean.

Tinker