Replies to post #219769 on Biotech Values

[mcbio]

ASMB -

It's good for humanity that somebody is testing to see if a short course of DAA treatment can cure HBV; however, I question whether this is an enterprising pursuit from an investment standpoint.

I certainly have to respectfully disagree as I don't question that there would be a significant market opportunity for a curative HBV treatment. Here are the slides for the ASMB R&D Day call: https://investor.assemblybio.com/static-files/07a91da0-92c7-49af-a800-ab018c50f8b6 .

Per slide 10, China is key with 90M HBV patients (good to see ASMB opened China-specific office in 2015) then you have 1.5M patients in U.S.; 5M in Europe; 2M in South Korea; and just over 1M in Japan. These figures outnumber HCV in those countries and dramatically so if China is included.

Also, slide 103 notes that 2017 sales for HBV drugs in those countries were $2.5B for non-curative and mostly generic drugs. I don't think it's hard to imagine how that number would dramatically rise if there were a branded, curative drug available.