Just re-read sav's post and the thing that jumps out at me is drug resistance.
Gilead's sofusbuvir is recommended for treatment of HCV gen 3 with a 24-week dosing period i.e. six months. This is not optimal.
Much of the HCV-infected community are intravenous drug users - not the most reliable or predictable group of patients. If a patient starts on a course of sofusbuvir, but doesn't take the pills every day, or drops out before completing the course, then the virus may not be wiped out completely and the surviving virus will evolve drug-resistance.
Give it a few years, and a sofusbuvir-resistant strain of HCV could be circulating. That's not a good result for Gilead, giving it spent $11 billion to get its hands on sofusbuvir.
The imperative for Gilead (and J&J and everyone else) is to develop treatments that work quickly (weeks, not months) and are not susceptible to resistance. This points to cocktails of drugs with different modes of action.
BIT225 helped knock over HCV gen 3 with just 4-weeks dosing (although, the IFN/RBV component went for much longer).
Bit225 must be attractive to Gilead, J&J, et al, because it has the potential to protect their massive investments from being devalued by the scourge of drug resistance.
BIT Price at posting:
8.3¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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