Replies to post #273 on SurModics Inc (SRDX)

[DewDiligence]

>So I will respectfully disagree with your outlook on this one<

No problem—that’s what these boards are for! I will reply in more detail after I’ve thought things over. I’ll be gone for the weekend. Regards, Dew

[DewDiligence]

Re: I-vation vs intravitreal Lucentis

>If someone can match the efficacy of Lucentis with a treatment that lasts a year or more, Lucentis will lose market share rapidly. I don't think matching the efficacy of Lucentis on an I-Vation-type device will be a terribly difficult challenge. The driving force is there: I just can't see the market staying satisfied with repeat injections 6 times a year or so, unless there is no good alternative. So I will respectfully disagree with your outlook on this one.<

I said I would think more about this over the weekend and I did. My conclusion is that you are perhaps more biased than you realize.

You consider Lucentis’ intravitreal injections highly invasive, yet you seem to give the invasiveness of I-vation surgery an almost free pass. Surely a procedure by even the most skilled surgeon to implant or explant I-vation is more invasive than an intravitreal dose of Lucentis. The question is: how much more?

This is clearly subjective, but I think an i-Vation surgery ought to be counted as being as invasive as at least four intravitreal injections. If we assume that I-vation can last one year on average, then the two surgeries to implant it and remove it would be at least as invasive as eight Lucentis treatments, which is more than the approximately six Lucentis treatments that DNA anticipates an average patient will receive in the first year. Hence, according to my numbers, intravitreal Lucentis has the edge and SRDX would have to show a clear-cut benefit in efficacy to have any hope of making I-vation a mainstream product.

There are two ways in which I-vation could look better than the above numbers suggest:

1. If the I-vation implant can be left in longer than one year without sacrificing efficacy; or

2. If the surgical procedure of removing the old implant and inserting a new one is not materially more cumbersome than doing just one of these actions, then the relative attractiveness of I-vation improves for treatment durations of more than one year even if the implant needs replacement at one-year intervals to maintain efficacy.

Dew