Permission granted.
Please keep in mind that I have NOT read the papers Ariad references on their web site. In addition, the questions I have about Ariad's approach are in the context of what is clearly a well funded, highly motivated Company with excellent academic connections. They have active collaborations with Gerald Crabtree of Stanford and Stuart Schreiber of Harvard: according to Ariad, these two have successfully tested ( in vitro ) a gene expression system developed by Ariad which displays high specificity and low background. The company is providing, free of charge, kits of this system to all comers. This is impressive since a) I've examined the application form and its straightforward (i.e. my first thought was not '..lawyers, guns, and money'), b) it shows a good deal of confidence on the part of the Company that their product will survive 'real world' use. My point here is that my questions about ARIA are not at the level of fundamental viability; rather, I am expressing the necessary skepticism about translating successful laboratory reagents into disease fighting drugs. Its a long, tedious transition fraught with peril and usually unsuccessful.
BTW, it would be unwise to ignore the fact that 4 out of 4 analysts covering the company give it a perfect 1.0 rating. In my limited experience (my first graduate advisor traded his workbench for a Quotron), biotech. analysts are primarily science geeks who actually wanted to support a family. Thus, with reasonable doubt, their opinions should not be discounted.
Best wishes,
Peter |
