Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Nathan Sadeghi-Nejad’s article on PCSK9 inhibitors echoes the comments by John LaMattina in #msg-73708148: i.e. these drugs may be stellar science, but they are a less than stellar business proposition:

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11478695/1/regeneron-amgen-and-the-hope-creation-cycle.html

Central to the above argument is that many patients who don’t get to their cholesterol goal on a statin fail to do so because of non-compliance rather than a shortcoming in the statin class per se. Nathan Sadeghi-Nejad posits—and I agree—that for all but the highest-risk patients, third-party payers will demand to see hard evidence of patient compliance on a (generic) statin before reimbursing for an expensive new class of drugs such as the PCSK9s.