Highlights from Conference Call with Dr. Joel Gallant on HIV
On 9/24, CIBC hosted a conference call with Dr. Joel Gallant, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins AIDS Service.
Dr. Gallant expects the trend towards treating newly-diagnosed pts earlier to continue, and expects guidelines will evolve to mandate treating any pt with a CD4 count below 350 cells/mL. This could potentially expand the market for 1st-line HIV drugs, and help maintain growth of GILD's Truvada and Atripla.
Dr. Gallant views Atripla as the default regimen for most 1st-line HIV pts, and expects only minor competition from Epzicom. He believes TMC278 has the greatest likelihood of displacing Sustiva in the future, and sees the potential for coformulation with GILD's Truvada. He said that for the majority of treatmentnaive pts, he does not see a medical rationale for prescribing AZT, and believes physician inertia accounts for much of the drug's use in this setting. Dr. Gallant believes MRK's raltegravir will be used in 2nd-line pts failing an NNRTI and in pts currently on Fuzeon, and expects the drug to gradually move into earlier lines of therapy. He does not view ritonavir boosting as a major issue for GILD's elvitegravir in later lines of treatment, but said the possibility of inducing PI resistance could limit elvitegavir's potential in front-line pts. Dr. Gallant said the maturation inhibitors are an exciting new class, given bevirimat's good tolerability and lack of cross-resistance. He believes a liquid formulation could be commercially viable in later lines of treatment, if the taste is acceptable to pts. Ph.IIb data from the 300mg cohort of bevirimat is expected in October, and we believe this dose will need to demonstrate greater viral load declines than the 250mg dose to reignite enthusiasm for the drug. Overall, our conversation with Dr. Gallant reaffirmed our view that Atripla and Truvada will continue to gain traction in the 1st line, and our more cautious expectations for GILD's elvitegravir and PANC's bevirimat pending additional data. |
