Biotech Values

[biomaven0]

I grant that historically oncology has been a tougher area than other spaces, largely because of more failures in Phase III. Again speaking historically, the oncology success rate from Phase I to approval (around 7%) has been only a bit more than half that of other areas (around 12%).

But in contradistinction to that historical rate, a highly-targeted drug that works will have a very easy time of it compared with any other class of drugs. Thus one could project with reasonable certainty that ponatinib was going to be at least an approvable drug after a few Phase I patients had responded. (Not saying this was enough data to say it would be a successful drug, just an approvable drug). The safety hurdles are much lower than in virtually any other space, and reimbursement is also pretty clear.

Peter