Replies to post #217659 on Biotech Values

[poorgradstudent]

NKTR:

This is admittedly unscientific, but it seems intuitively unlikely that a small-molecule drug added to a checkpoint inhibitor is going to be the Holy Grail in the treatment of metastatic cancers. I think this is one reason NKTR-214 is generating more excitement than, say, Epacadostat.

NKTR has 22 evaluable RCC patients with 0 or 1 prior line of therapy and accrued 11 responses (1 CR) in 22 patients, or 50%.

INCY had 19 evaluable patients with 0 or 1 prior line of therapy* and accrued 9 responses (1 CR) for 47%. I don't have exact breakdown of how many were 0 and how many were 1 prior therapy, but the enrollment ratio was 3:4. FWIW, I'm *very* pessimistic in this indication for epacadostat.


I think the key to generating excitement is to find the best light to shine on your drug.



* At the most recent report, they had 30 enrolled but only 19 were evaluable. That's why I can't determine exact breakdown.

[dewophile]

My admittedly unscientific skepticism of IDOs has nothing to do with small vs large molecule, but rather the utter lack of SEs vs PD-1 monotherapy. In a bizarre way it would actually give me more confidence if there even some minor additional immune SEs (I can't help but think of EGFRs in this regard). It's one thing that IDOs have no monotherapy efficacy, but also that you can have greater immune activity at the target with virtually no off target effects seems like it is too good to be true..but the data is the data and it is promising. I guess we will know soon w echo-301 reporting