Replies to post #82061 on Biotech Values

[ghmm]

ITMN:

ITMN itself—rather than Roche—is conducting the ITMN-191 testing with ritonavir.

I did not pick up on anything to indicate that Roche is not fully onboard with ritonavir but its possible I missed something somewhere as I've have been lax of late! The PR is worded in the plural though:

InterMune and its collaboration partner Roche announced today their plan to initiate during the third quarter, a Phase 1b multiple-ascending-dose (MAD) study of once-daily and twice-daily ITMN-191 co-administered with a low dose of ritonavir in combination with...

On Bosentan in IPF-
I am not good a predicting stock price but I would think it takes a fair sized hit (if Bosentan has positive results and slightly positive if Bosentan fails). From an investment standpoint it may be an opportunistic time to buy as I suspect (if Pirfenidone is also approved) that both drugs do well. They have different mechanisms so perhaps they would be used together (though cost may be an issue). I would imagine too that since its unlikely either drug will stabilize patients switching may be common.

IPF and trials in IPF are very unpredictable so a positive result is certainly not out of the question. But lets say I am not as concerned about Actelion as I am about FDA :-). I never got a good sense about ETA's in IPF and listening to Actelion calls they never sounded extremely knowledgeable (at least upper management). I believe BUILD-3 is based on a retrospective analysis (subset of patients with IPF confirmed with open lung bioposy). If you are very interested there are some podcasts with Pulmonolgists talking about this and other trials (InterMune funds the site but the Docs do not come across as biased)
http://www.pilotforipf.org/audio/podcast.rss

Also depending on how Bosentan does one may expect the same with Gilead's Letairis (ambrisentan) trial.

PS
You seem to have taken on an added interest in InterMune. Does the ritonavir trial have anything to do with that?