Biotech Values

[oc631]

The 24-week arms of ION-1 haven’t been reported yet, but they are all but meaningless from a commercial standpoint because no third-party payers will fund 24 weeks of treatment when 12 weeks of treatment produces an SVR12 rate of more than 97%. (The possible exception is cirrhotic patients, but GILD hasn’t yet disclosed the subgroup data for cirrhotics.)

It hasn't been disclosed yet but the pricing strategy for Sofo/Ledi will most certainly be based on a treatment duration basis. Like Sofo/Riba in GT2/GT3. With this in mind, the reason 24-week dosing is meaningless (as you state) is a result of GILD's pricing strategy. GILD claims in their PR that the majority of tolerability issues come from ribavirin use. If true there would be doctors and patients willing to take the Sofo/Ledi combo for 24-weeks (by choice) due to the trend in added efficacy. Remember also that the data we looked at today is cherry-picked clinical data that will not be reproduced in the real world setting. This makes the longer dosing, efficacy trend a meaningful stat.