Replies to post #3802 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

>> …could side effects be more detectable in 2004 with relatively healthy patients, as opposed to in the past with seriously ill cancer patients? <<

Not more detectable, but perhaps more troublesome. A given side effect that is considered acceptable in cancer might be unacceptable in AMD, which is not life-threatening. This was the case for OXGN’s CA4P, which may yet make it as a cancer drug but has proved to be too toxic to be administered systemically for AMD.

Still, the Squalamine dose being tested in AMD is lower than the cancer dose by such an enormous factor that the above scenario does not seem especially likely.

>> Second question is about the line between infusions and multiple injections. Anyone know if 10 mg gets us within reach of multiple injections? It seems that would be a big plus.<<

That’s a good question and I’ve done some thinking about the potential competitive disadvantage of making Squalamine patients wait around for an infusion.

The rule of thumb I’ve calculated from doing some DD on the Squalamine cancer trials is that Squalamine can be infused at approximately 40mg/hour. Thus, cutting the AMD dose from 40mg to 10mg shortens infusion time from approximately one hour to 15 minutes, which could be a major advantage in its own right.

If the infusion time can be made as short as 15 minutes, I don’t think there would be a significant advantage in convenience from switching to one or more bolus injections.