Replies to post #131548 on Biotech Values

[JJM760]

If someone at ARIA actually said this, it’s a rather extreme case of hyperbole. I continue to find these kinds of remarks, of which there have recently been several, to be mildly bearish.

From the second page:

Ariad Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge company, is developing drugs that will block all the mutations through which a particular cancer could overcome a treatment.

Even with a strategy aimed at cutting off all escape routes, however, the company’s founder and chief executive, Dr. Harvey Berger, said it was important not to underestimate the opposition.

“Never bet against biology; never bet against a cancer cell. They’re too ‘smart,’ so I’ll never say that it’s impossible that a mutation can grow out,’’ Berger said.

[biomaven0]

Sounds to me like the reporter (not surprisingly) oversimplified a complex issue. It is the case that ponatinib seems to be able to overcome all single-point mutations in CML (but not multiple mutations) and likely the reporter read about that and reported it as "block all mutations." Berger's actual quote is much more realistic.

I've very rarely read a newspaper article where I have actual knowledge of the facts reported in which I can't point to an error of some kind in the article.

Peter