Replies to post #186416 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

CNAT—I just found it surprising that they would want to push a pan-caspase inhibitor rather than focusing on a subset.

Emricasan has varying degrees of inhibition of the ten relevant caspases, although there is at least some inhibition of all of them, according to the company’s materials.

[jq1234]

Only after understanding the targets better, and their clinical profiles better do they start to focus on isoforms or narrower targets. This could be a case in the future. Almost all examples you gave started with pan-inhibition at first.

GS9450 is a caspase inhibitor. The good news is GILD tested it in a ph2 study for NASH with positive marker data:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/04/16/gilead-liver-idUSN1524808920100416

The bad news is the drug was discontinued after safety issue in a ph2 HCV trial:

http://investors.gilead.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=69964&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1414682