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Biotech / Medical : Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (HGSI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nigel bates who wrote (845)	4/11/2005 2:25:54 PM
From: Steven Rachbach	Respond to of 1127

Comments about today's report from Lehman (from a post I did for the Yahoo board): micro, Thanks for posting the salient points of the Lehman analyst. In general, this is about the best analysis of a trial and prediction of a result for a future related trial that I have read from an analyst. A few points: << Following the receipt of the complete Phase II results, GSK will have 60 days in which to decide whether to become the global development and commercialization partner with HGS for Lymphostat B. This is an opt-in right for the molecule not just for a specific indication, so GSK's decision will be based on the RA data and will have to be made before the lupus data is available in October.>> Totally correct. How many times have we seen analysts over the years get this wrong or don't even mention it.? <<What makes this study particularly difficult to assess versus the other biologics is the large proportion of patients who had failed TNF drugs and the very low placebo response rate both of which suggest that this was a very refractory population.>> Yes, and let's hope that it was indeed, a very refractory population. The other possibility is that there is a small chance that the placebo group was "sicker" to begin than the patients in the treatment group. Remember, the p value for all treatment groups vs. control group was 0.02; meaning there is still a 2% probability that the differences between treatment and placebo were due to chance and not the effect of the drug. <<The second important issue is whether this data in any way predicts the outcome of the Phase II lupus study; that is, does clinical activity - albeit modest - in one rheumatologic indication indicate a higher probability of success in another rheumatologic indication. In our view, it does increase the likelihood of success in lupus. While the pathophysiology of lupus compared to rheumatoid arthritis is distinct.. (I)t would difficult to argue that success is now greater than 50%>> I agree. However, lupus is a quite a different disease with distinct (and like RA, not altogether understood) pathogenesis. In addition, lupus has been shown again and again to be more difficult to treat in a litany of failed drug trials. Long before the results of the RA study were known, I predicted that the probability of success in the trials was 25-50%. I believed (based on how “hard” it is to treat RA and SLE historically),that the chance of success in RA and lupus trials was close to 50% and 25% respectively. Now, with the moderate success of the RA trial, the odds of success in the SLE trial are improved. However, because SLE is much harder to treat plus the fact that the improvement in the RA trial was modest, I now predict a 30 to 40% chance of success of the lupus trial. --Steve