Replies to post #824 on Idenix Pharmaceuticals (IDIX)

[gofishmarko]

IDIX did a little spinning on the results of the nonresponder trial , IMO :

"The end- of-treatment response rates and post-treatment SVR rates were comparable for patients receiving valopicitabine and pegylated interferon and those receiving pegylated interferon and ribavirin."

EOT response rates were comparable. SVR rates were not. One SVR is still one SVR , and zero is still zero. SOC got 1 SVR from only 34 patients. NM283 got zero SVRs from 144 patients.

If you consider that the responders in the SOC arm almost certainly arose from the 'relapser' cohort , which probably comprised the 6 patients who were pcr-neg at 24 wks. , then the SVR rate for that group was ~17% ( 1/6 ).

Out of 22 patients on NM283 who were pcr-neg at wk. 24 , none achieved SVR. Since most , if not all , of those who were neg at wk. 24 were probably in the grioup of 29 who were neg at EOT , it means that at least 20 or so patients were pcr-neg for 36 wks. or more. For none of those to achieve SVR is bad news for IDIX.

I don't see how the P3 gets done without riba. I don't think we'll see any more NM283 plus pegifn-only studies.