are you questioning targeted gene therapies in general or Ariad's ALK inhibitor specifically
Neither -- I guess my point was that despite the rational development process no doubt becoming better tuned, I still have a sense that clinical studies will reveal side effects and unexpected results more often than they did in the case with Gleevec.
I'm fully on board with targeted therapy but my thought was that clinical results are designed to test more than just whether a compound is or isn't active. If this is the 21st century in biotech, then I'm actually pretty stoked to be in on the ground floor.
I suppose we can't live in fear of our next compound being another TGN1412, huh? ;-|
But I think I have a better idea of what we mean about this and I think that Ariad's development bench is looking stronger and stronger. For a long time I took HB's talk about "building a stand-alone oncology company" with a big grain of salt. Now, I'm starting to believe.
Maybe I should just exercise those 2012 $4 calls rather than sell them. What a pleasant dilemma, no?