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Biotech / Medical : XOMA. Bull or Bear? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: aknahow who wrote (7270)	9/22/1998 8:12:00 PM
From: Mike McFarland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17367

well, if you want to play that game rBPI-21 reduces LBP levels in humans: xoma.com Hey, all I know is it has always looked interesting and on a day with decent volume where it held up (despite apparently some daytraders getting out in the last hour) I'd say there is a good chance that the stock price has indeed bottomed. So george, are ya a bull or a bear? Hey, I wont argue that there are plenty of other tiny biotech stocks out there that are cheaper, I own a handful, but xoma looks fairly safe now--I guess I'll have to go back and read your other posts to see where you sit on this one. --MM

To: aknahow who wrote (7270)	9/23/1998 11:52:00 PM
From: Cacaito	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17367

Meningitis is not necessarily a septicemia. BPI theoretically more difficult to work on that rabbit model: 1. How many colonies of bacteria did they injected directly in the CSF ?(not the way E.Coli behave in most patients, but maybe newborns). The model is drastic and poorly mimic actual disease. 2. Meningitis is mainly a local problem, and insulated, very difficult for drug penetration. In meningococcemia, the problem is in the blood and systemic, this is the human model in the ongoing PIII pivotal trial, here the treatment goes right to the affected area. 3. Fair, they did use intrathecal BPI (direct infusion to the CSF), but was it a single dose? did they mimic the continuos infusion model of the humans and other animal studies? it could made a big difference. Was their end of evaluation just 10 hours of treatment? what about morbidity, mortality, full recovery, disability, nervous deficits? most models of sepsis recovery take days for improvement,and like the Meningo PIII study patients are followed for months (90 days). And they jump to a big conclusion that it will not be worth it just from this? Xoma should be more careful in allowing their BPI to be used this way, especially if they are paying for it, they should be more strict in the study design, even in rats. 4. The phase II study in humans with abdominal infectious complications (you post it few days ago), is a much more interesting study, and here E. coli is the most common bacteria, forget those rats, the human phase II shows very good promise, next will be a phase III with placebo and double blind. 5. Do not forget E5, is not dead yet and in rats is synergistic with BPI, once BPI is approved (if)it could be tested for those tough E.Coli. Again, the intraabdominal infectious PII is impressive. 6. Where does BPI goes inside the meningeal spaces? does it attach to leak protein or to the huge amount of leukocyte cells and gets inactivated? is a bigger dose necessary? Did not prevent the leukocytes from coming in? after 15 hours of a huge bacterial load the least is to have white cells available to fight, not to inhibit them. How many were treated simultaneously with the appropriate blood infusion method? it is the proven way to work so far in many models, to jump to the intrathecal route, a route abandon in many treatment strategies is not completely justified. Chaging subject: The DSMB review before completion is a welcome event in my view. I will speculate that it has to do with the new "modular" presentation of drug applications where companies will present completed data first (phaseI,II, doses, manufacturing abilities)to avoid a final bulky thousands of pages application. It will theoretically accelerate drug development and approval and save money to the company. Just my rosy view.