Biotech Values

[mcbio]

RIGL a buy near $6? from recent blurbs

I don't see me ever considering RIGL again, at this point. Yes, a plunge today but market cap is still ~$500M. Also, I think the fostamatinib news today is terrible and that is by far RIGL's key asset. They showed that fostamatinib is less effective than Humira in patients that respond to both Humira and fostamatinib. How are they going to effectively compete with Humira, should fostamatinib even reach the marketplace, knowing that it's inferior to Humira, particularly with the prospect of Humira biosimilars to come?

Also, this was just for a Phase 2b trial (that I had forgot about). I believe that first Phase 3 pivotal to read out is the trial in patients that don't respond to biologics like Humira. This is similar to the Phase 2b TASKi3 trial that failed. I would guess that this is now the key trial for RIGL and fostamatinib. That's because if they show fostamatinib works in patients that don't respond to Humira then, sure, that would seem to be a clear opportunity. But, how likely is that given the similar Phase 2b trial that failed? Also, even if those other Phase 3 trials testing the drug in more conventional settings succeed, the question will still remain as to how effectively fostamatinib can compete in the marketplace given that we now know it's inferior to Humira.