Replies to post #95802 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Perhaps ribavirin can be dosed at a much smaller QD amount when combined with direct-acting antivirals. No idea if that's feasible, but just offering that as a possibility.

Sure, it’s feasible to look at a lower dose of ribavirin, but this may not be a productive use of the limited set of variables a sponsor can test in a given clinical program. Moreover, ribavirin takes four weeks to reach a steady-state plasma concentration, so if you cut the dose significantly in a relatively short trial, ribavirin may not do much for the efficacy of the cocktail.

To date, no one has experimented with lowering the dose of ribavirin except to ensure safety on the fly—as, for instance, in the Boceprevir trial mentioned in #msg-50187183.

[DewDiligence]

Point taken. But I do think the data itself is very impressive.

Agreed—the ACH-1625 data to date look good. I’m less impressed with the performance of management, and I consider the Dietrich Disinformation campaign on the CC a cautionary note.

[turtlepower]

ACHN - Thanks for your excellent CC notes. While I agree that it appeared that the results were being severely pumped (dietrich joking about Mount Sinai being used as a potential trial site may not have helped), it appeared that ACHN mainly had dietrich over to provide a different perspective. An impressive number of analysts from pretty much all the major firms called in and the first question was addressed to Dietrich so his presence was useful. I wonder though whether they would be able to get good terms when a potential partner knows that a next gen PI is waiting in the wings. It seems to me a potential partner would also want a part of a next gen compound in addition to the current one.