Biotech Values

[mcbio]

ACHN is having a stellar day (up 20%) to $7.22 as I write this message.

Perhaps it's on the pricing of the offering, I'm not sure. Surprised to see the stock up so much on no concrete news. (They did announce after close that they have begun dosing in the 3-month portion of the Phase 2 trial of 1625.)

In turn I would add ACHN to my short list of HCV candidates.

Short list of HCV candidates to invest in? ; )

Even if 2684 achieves pangenotypic status it will need to be paired outside its class to boost the drugs resistance profile IMO. BMY pairing their P.I. with their NS5A already ended in failure. Will ACHN meet the same fate?

Yes, of course, 2684 (and 1625) will in all likelihood need to be paired with an HCV nuke or a drug from another HCV class, but so what? Why can't that be done? Sure, it would be better if they had the entire combo in-house (they have the PI+NS5A combo in-house but, like you say, what we saw before from BMY probably means this won't be enough) but that's not to say that they can't hook up with a partner down the road.

The P.I. class therefore may only find limited usage in nulls and non-responders on top of nukes and the chance of a safety issue, even at this MC, is more risk than I would be willing to bear.

Way too early to say it will be limited usage for the PI class. And it's not like ACHN has a $5B market cap so they don't need to have a bonafide blockbuster on their hands in 1625, 2684, and/or 2928 for the stock to do well longer-term. And do you really want to talk chance of safety issue and risk to market cap in light of the VRUS valuation? lol ACHN is a VRUS nuke safety (or other) issue away from really being in great shape but I don't think they necessarily need that to do well.

How will investors in ACHN react to expensive phase 2 testing in combination with PEG/Riba when the end of their usage is in sight?

And the end of their usage could be in sight with a combo of 1625 or 2684 plus a nuke or an HCV drug from another class. All told, though I give credit where credit is due and ackowledge that VRUS is in great shape, I'm not sold that the VRUS nukes will be the end-all-be-all of next gen HCV therapy. It's a big enough market that there will likely be room for multiple drugs from multiple classes.