I think there's a chance that any negative rida news
Do you really see there being no overall survival benefit with regard to Rida considering the p-value of .0001; I'm thinking the arms have got to be nicely separating at this point. Further, even a 3 week PFS, there's got to be some subsets (I am thinking in the soft tissue subset) which show a tremendous PFS benefit (I don't think bone sarcoma is going to show much at all). Also, didn't Tarceva show only a few week (or somewhere around there) PFS benefit and they were approved?
It irritates me that Merck hasn't said anything about the results, but, I just do not think they wouldn't at least file an NDA after spending all this time and money on the trial - what do they have to lose. The drug certainly was statistically significant and met its SPA endpoints.
Personally, I think there is too much "reading into" going on with regard to Merck not saying anything and that is having an unfounded effect on the stock right now.
Ponatinib is the driver though...no doubt about that. The only thing that scares the hell out of me is some ridiculous outlier QT-prolongation or some negative event, not event related to the drug, that could happen in a seriously sick person, which would cause the trial to be halted...even though it likely had nothing to do with the drug. In fact, stuff like that irks me to death in any trial (most recently, Oncothyreon's Stimuvax which was halted because 1 out of 1,500 patients developed encephalitis and after 1,500 patients had been taking the drug for years.... so the FDA halted the program for three months and killed the stock)
You may just get your opportunity. Obviously I hope you don't. I think it's pretty cheap right now and this IS your opportunity. I also don't take Merck's silence on Rida as some have. I think that's just their S.O.P.
Aria's pipeline may not be majestic as Dew pointed out, but it is pretty damn good. They have 2 years of cash and the possibility of 2 drugs on the market next year (Pona may end up being a blockbuster). They most likely will have some big cash infusions in the form of the $25 mil Merck milestone @ Rida NDA and some sort of Pona regional partnership (I would be speculating if I guessed at what that would be worth).
But for what ever reason, this company seems to always attract pessimism and you may end up being right.
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