Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: HCV throughput

Respectfully disagree with you and ‘ciotera’ that the shortened duration of treatment (from 24 weeks with Incivek/Victrelis to 12 weeks for non-hard-to-treat patients using GILD’s or ABBV’s all-oral regimen) changes the throughput of the HCV healthcare system to an appreciable degree.

Regardless of whether treatment duration is 24 weeks or 12 weeks, the number of per-patient visits to the treating physician’s office (including initial assessment, SVR12 confirmation, and discharge) will be about the same. That the all-oral regimens will allow the same number of per-patient visits to be compressed into a shorter period does not increase the number of HCV patients a given physician can treat during a given period of time, which is the definition of throughput as discussed in the seventh paragraph of #msg-92234861.