RE:RE:RE:RE:Evidence suggests sales are goodI thought what Taimed said was the resistance rate was 8% (thats how the taiwanese guys who were at the agm reported it to us) not the failure rate. I like your 20% assumption on failure rate, the best assumption is to go with the failure rate of the trials. Its a complex issue, as well as the health of the patients you also have the quality of the OBR to take into account. Both issues are somewhat linked but if the impact of the other drugs in a patients cocktail is limited and Trogarzo is doing most of the work clearing virus then the path to resistance is easier. Many in the trial had no other drugs (except experimental drugs) so I can see an argument for the trial data representing a worst case scenario but we dont yet know the makeup of the VF MDR patients to compare that with. The real issue at the moment is the data on resistance is limited, the story isnt fully clear so likely its best to stay conservative on this issue, as I said I like your 20% for that.
I could go into alot of the science, my background is as a geneticist and bacterial drug resistance so I know alot of it but I'm no virus/HIV expert. I dont know to what extent that would help though.
What might potentially happen???
They may get a clearer picture of how resistance is working, be able to identify resistance genotypes with some certainty and introduce resistance testing. That is unlikely to happen anytime soon (I dont see it happening in the next 12 months) and would only impact the small number of patients that go on the drug, get no benefit and quickly come off it. You could see that as a negative (in terms of loss of some revenue) but the positive impact is the drug becomes more effective in the patients its used in, so an improved 'reputation' would be the trade off. If in the near term they can sign up alot of patients, and if those patients behave at least as well as the trial patients, then most are going to be successful. This you imagine is going to keep doctors confident about using the drug in MDR patients even with some unfortunate failures. The story is still about Thera maximizing penetration of the drug IMO, what impact resistance has is likely still only to be considered peripheral at this stage. Thats how I see it anyway.
Just my opinion.