Replies to post #176693 on Biotech Values

[jq1234]

>> MRK: for example they ran their 8 week arm in GT1a patients, not the presumably easier to treat 1b subtype.

MRK's C-WORTHy trial includes not only 8-week arm for GT1a with RBV but also two arms for GT1b with or without RBV. They just haven't reported results from those two arms yet probably because they added these arms later on.

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01717326?term=MK-5172+%2B+MK-8742+phase+3&rank=6&submit_fld_opt=

[DewDiligence]

Re: HCV pricing

…my running hypothesis on pricing is that GILD will offer sofo/led at about $1200 a pill, making treatment for naives $67K - which gives some cover politically since it is at a discount relative to current tx for GT2/3 of $84K. GILD has no need to discount sofo at all while they have a monopoly in this pt population. a 12-week course will run slightly over $100K, which is fine for PI failure pts who have really no other options. this maximizes - I think - profit for GILD based on pricing and market share projections.

Your thinking on pricing is consistent with mine.

As posted in #msg-94993406, I expect ABBV’s US average price for the 3-DAA regimen to be $60K.* Using your forecasts of $67K and $100K, respectively, for the US list prices of GILD’s 8w and 12w Sovaldi+Ledipasvir regimens, ABBV’s $60K would be a 10% discount to GILD’s 8w regimen and a 40% discount to GILD’s 12w regimen (based on GILD's list prices), which is consistent with the comments in #msg-100335282.

The above analysis may be somewhat off, of course; however, until the companies disclose the actual pricing, I think the above is close enough for investment purposes.

*In the EU, I expect the average price to be $25K (#msg-94993406).