That Roche was (IMO) willing to pay $175M to get out of the ITMN agreement tells me that Roche considers a protease inhibitor an obligate component of an all-oral HCV cocktail.
Agreed.
I know Roche had previously licensed ITMN's 2nd/3rd gen HCV PI, which isn't even in the clinic yet. I assume that agreement is still in place as today's news only appeared to pertain to ITMN-191. Did the HCV PI exclusivity arrangement pertain strictly to ITMN-191 or did it also involve the 2nd/3rd gen HCV PI? Just curious if we would need to see Roche also cancel the agreement with ITMN regarding the 2nd/3rd gen HCV PI before we would expect Roche to seek out a PI from another company.
If the problem with the IDIX's 184/320 combo turns out to be a problem with the PI (320) and the way that it interacts with other anti-viral agents, then how do we know for sure that this is not a class-wide effect and will not happen again with other powerful PI's when used in combo with other types of anti-viral agents?
What is wrong with a two-nuke/non-nuke combo or a two-nuke/NS5A inhibitor? Why do you think a PI has to be part of the combo?