Replies to post #143539 on Biotech Values

[mcbio]

I believe this is a test based upon gene copies, so not exactly the same thing as Roche found most predictive (protein levels) and ARQL tested for (they used IHC in your above cite). But still not comforting.

If what Roche found to be "most predictive" of MET levels is the same test that ARQL used to arrive at its numbers, I don't understand why that would be not comforting.

[jq1234]

I have seen literature that aligned quite well with both ARQL and Roche's findings. Similar findings from BOTH Tivantinib AND MetMab move me to this direction. I was questioning squamous subpopulation result when Tivantinib ph2 result was initially announced.

This is important:

PS There is one piece of supporting data which cannot be entirely discounted - and that is that Roche too noted that the squamous patients did less well than the non-squamous.

Here are a couple of literature. There are many others.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1349-7006.1996.tb03111.x/pdf

Adenocarcinomas expressed cMet proteins more frequently than squamous cell carcinomas. In fact, strong cMet protein expression densitometrically evaluated as strong (+++) was seen only in adenocarcinomas. In contrast, more than half squamous cell carcinomas failed to show any cMet protein expression.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1886862/pdf/amjpathol00076-0188.pdf

In conclusion, the results of our studies with both
the cell lines and primary tumors of human NSCLCs
demonstrate that adenocarcinomas tend to show
high levels of expressions for TGF-a, c-erbB-2, and
c-met, whereas squamous cell carcinomas tend to
express only higher level of EGFR. It remains to be
seen whether the differential expression of these
genes is causally or consequentially related to the
differentiation of these lung tumors.