Biotech Values

[mcbio]

FURX reports positive phase-2 data in IBD:

finance.yahoo.com/news/Furiex-Reports-Positive-Phase-bw-999859796.html?x=0&.v=1

FURX is a 2010 spinoff from PPDI that has yet to become profitable.

Never heard of this one before. You have any general thoughts on them? I see market cap is only about $135M and they look like they have a bit of a pipeline, though I don't know if there's any quality in there (http://www.furiex.com/pipeline/ ). With respect to the Phase 2 IBD data you linked to, looks like primary endpoint pertained to composite of stool consistency and abdominal pain at week 4 compared to baseline and their drug showed about 14% response at highest dose rate compared to just about 6% for placebo, which was stat sig. It's curious that the lowest dose was also stat sig, but the middle dose was not. Anyways, do you think the 14% versus 6% is real impressive or is this one of those cases where we should not just look at percentage improvement relative to placebo, but the overall impact? I.e., is 14% response really a dramatic clinical benefit for this drug?