Replies to post #141630 on Biotech Values

[mcbio]

HCV is nice and will be covered by VX-222 and the alios compounds in addition to telaprevir, but the future is CF and VX-509, VX-765 and VX-787.

HCV is hardly a market opportunity to sneeze at. And I respectfully disagree that VRTX will be covered by VX-222 and the Alios nukes, in addition to telaprevir. First, and again, telaprevir likely doesn't have much of a future in a 2nd gen HCV treatment regimen given that it's not QD and not as potent as the 2nd gen HCV drugs. Second, VX-222 is a non-nuke and IDIX has said before that non-nukes were always the weakest link in their pre-clinical HCV DAA studies. I think non-nukes have certainly had a mixed bag in the clinic. And if we are to ultimately move to just a 2-drug HCV DAA combo future, as theorized by Medivir (#msg-75360387 ), I find it unlikely that a 2-drug combo containing a non-nuke will be able to successfully compete against a 2-drug combo containing either an NS5A inhibitor or PI in lieu of a non-nuke (I'm assuming nuke as backbone).

I'll stick by my guess that at some point VRTX will make a move for an NS5A inhibitor and/or PI.