Replies to post #141266 on Biotech Values

[BTH]

SNTA expects to give further guidance later this year on partnering.

Why dont biotech CEOs just STFU and stop saying stuff like this? All it does is allow for speculation that can drag on for months if not years. So, basically, everyone waits and waits and waits, and then, in December, the big "guidance/update" is ..."we are working toward a partner and will provide updates on this later in 2013."

Everything else sounds good though. The drug could really be a good one.

Thanks for posting

[turtlepower]

SNTA - Is another risk competition from the other 4-5 companies also developing hsp90 inhibitors? Has Synta management ever discussed how Ganetespib stands out from the others? Competition may be the main reason for the compound not attracting a partner yet despite managements evident desire to partner it. They also probably need to partner soon since they had about 57M as of March so the EV is about 190 M.

Management also mentioned about talking to multiple companies about a diagnostic to identify the patients for the p3. Do you happen to know if they already have an arrangement for the Alk+ trial? If so the subset in the galaxy trial is unlikely to be Alk+ and more likely to be another subset.

[mcbio]

SNTA @ Deutsche (5/7/12)

[George Farmer, VP Corp Development, presented here.]

1. Decision to ultimately proceed to Phase 3 of GALAXY based on signal in two pre-specified sub-populations that they believe shows "very dramatic activity."

2. Immediately after the first point, around the 4-minute mark, it's noted that pre-specified populations were mutant KRAS and squamous disease, patients who have high and low LDH. So, it sounds like the signal is in mutant KRAS and in squamous (I took the speaker to mean that high and low LDH was a subset of squamous disease but if it's a third distinct category then the signal is in two of those 3 sub-groups.)

3. Farmer barely references INFI's candidate as a competitor (as iwfal posted, he notes that the drug is basically 17AAG once in the bloodstream). He referred to NVS' AUY-922 as the closest Hsp90 competitor and said that drug had similar potency to ganetespib but a presentation slide noted that drug had 89% ocular tox in a trial.

4. Starting around the 26:30 mark of the presentation, Farmer states he hasn't seen the data but he has seen the looks on the faces of the SNTA medical team and they are extremely excited about what they see. He also states that if the signal were merely a doubling of PFS at this early stage of the trial, he does not think they would feel comfortable in making this kind of announcement (about the signal in the two sub-groups) at such an early stage of the game. He adds that the signal is extremely strong.

5. Regarding partnering, the GALAXY data has changed SNTA's thinking about how they should partner ganetespib. Farmer states that knowing what they know now, SNTA believes they have an extremely valuable asset beyond ALK.