Replies to post #553 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Re: Forbes:

>> Zina the author of the article mentions the wet and dry form of amd and that the dry form can turn to the wet form. She didn't make the connection that since squalamine works systemically it may either prevent the second eye from ever becoming the wet form or even if the eye does progress it may take care of the problem before the disease progresses and causes too much damage to the eye so that it can't be repaired. <<

She needs to leave some good stuff for the next article –the one that will be written about the partnership deal for Squalamine :-)

Overall, I thought it was a fairly well-written article, although it was clearly too dismissive of the shortcomings in the recently released Macugen data.

[DewDiligence]

I, too, replied to the Forbes author:

>>
Dear Ms. Moukheiber:

Your Bull’s Eye article [December 22, 2003] left readers with the impression that the recently completed Macugen trials produced reasonably good clinical data. However, I believe it is more accurate to consider these trials a clinical failure.

The benefit-risk tradeoff is not especially compelling as only 6% of the patients in the overall patient pool gained three or more lines on their visual acuity reading (the standard threshold for a positive response), yet 2% of these patients experienced a serious adverse event such as a cataract, infection, or detached retina.

Although the Macugen data look better when viewed in terms of “stable vision” (defined as a result no worse than a loss of two lines), one would presume that Pfizer and Eyetech were hoping for much more when they entered into their lucrative licensing pact for Macugen.

The door is open for competing therapies in the wet form of macular degeneration such as Genentech's Lucentis and Genaera's Squalamine.
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