Replies to post #137722 on Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

The Metabasis collaboration with IDIX ended in 2007: #msg-21920406.

[acgood]

LGND preclinical hepdirect HCV inhibitor

I haven't read the 10k yet. But:

-there was an MBRX hepdirect HCV asset previously licensed to Roche - made it to phase 1 (not sure of the target of the drug)

-worldwide rights to all hepdirect assets for HCV already have been licensed to Chiva

-I would be shocked in LGND was investing anything in any hepdirect asset currently.

[mcbio]

I was just going through Ligands 10k and they mention a HepDirect HCV inhibitor in preclinical development. Ordinarily I would put little to no value on such a program especially considering it came from a deal a few years ago and nothing (positive) has been made of it since.

With all the HCV hype of late I did a little (not a lot) of digging and noticed Metabasis had done deals with Idenix, Merck (Schering) and Roche. It seems they were working on turning the companies current nucleoside/nucleotide into prodrug versions. I am not sure on the terms of some of these collaborations if they got rights to the compounds and its one of those or if Ligand just decided to do work inhouse and apply the metabasis technology.

If its a real program I hope they sell it while the market is still hot for HCV drugs .

I'm kind of in agreement with the tempered thoughts from others on this program and not inclined to assign much value to it. I also thought the BACE article posted in #msg-71363743 takes a little bit of the wind out of the sails for the BACE program, which was one of the reasons I was taking a closer look at LGND. That's not to say that Promacta can't right the ship on its own down the road.