For Cough In Vivo Model - NP 120 > Gefapixant, may beBit of a history on BLU compound -
I was not surprised to see when BLU 5937 failed in its Ph2a trial: coz I know the company acquried the asset from AZ site in Quebec, and everybody knew when AZ left Canada it gave away the compound libraries to Neomed which ultimately gave it to Bellus for merely ~$2M upfront and 10% royalty. As BLU saw the news of Merck entering a fairly neglected space of chronic cough by acquiring Afferent pharma for $500M upfront for merely 1 cough focused asset, BLU's roberto bellini rushed to in licensed Neomed's P2X3 OA pain focused asset and repurpose to Cough.
As far as In Vivo models and data readouts are concerned below is my comparison -
1) Efficacy reported by Bellus for BLU 5937 vs Gefapixant - in citric acid Guinea pig model
Mean cough frequency reduction
- 3mg (BLU 5937) 39% vs control
- 30mg (BLU 5937) 52% vs control
- 30mg (Gefapixant) 45% vs control
2) Efficacy reported by Algernon for NP 120 vs Gefapixant - in citric acid Guinea pig model
Mean cough frequency reduction
- 1.5mg (NP 120) 42% vs control
- 3.5mg (BLU 5937) 20% vs control
Now a lot of big pharma names have tried to focus on cough in IPF (especially Merck also tried Gefapixant) but all the players have failed miserablly becuase clinicians believe that lungs in IPF patients get reduced and mechanically injured that its hard to recover i.e. reduced cough.
I know there is a off label usage of Nintedanib for IPF patients suffering from cough and the patients get temporary relief.
So, in a nutshell, Its not ideal to compare Gefapixant for Cough in IPF patients vs NP 120 but there is no other suitable comparison at all. And if the data coming out early next year looks promising then this company may be worth atleast $1B as was Bellus at its peak (or AGN can be valued $500M the moment some big pharma player quote them in an investor day as was happeded with Merck quoting BLU in one of their investor day)