The Motley Fool: Will Merck's Bold Hepatitis C Play Pay Off?

There is a significant (and sometimes larger than expected) gap between "looks like it can compete" and actually competing with a rival that has both strong data and a big head start, but Merck (NYSE: MRK  ) continues to show that it is serious about competing with Gilead (NASDAQ: GILD  ) and AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV  ) in the market for advanced therapies for hepatitis C (or HCV). The company's nearly $4 billion acquisition of Idenix (NASDAQ: IDIX  ) is an expensive affirmation of that long-term focus, but one that could start paying off before the end of the decade.

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Will Merck's Bold Hepatitis C Play Pay Off?

Seeking Alpha: How Bad Will The Partial Hold On Sovaprevir Be For Achillion?

Achillion (ACHN) investors got a huge piece of bad news on Monday evening, when this biotech virology specialist announced that its lead protease inhibitor for hepatitis C (HCV), sovaprevir, has been placed on clinical hold by the FDA after troubling safety data. With the stock down sharply in after-hours trading, this is clearly a major near-term problem for the company and the stock, and it definitely raises troubling questions about the safety profile of this drug.

While I do not believe this development devastates the long-term potential of the drug in HCV treatment, it most likely freezes any possibility of an acquisition and it is almost certainly going to appear as an issue if/when the company files for FDA approval.

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How Bad Will The Partial Hold On Sovaprevir Be For Achillion?

Seeking Alpha: Volcano Still Has Plenty To Prove

Volcano (VOLC) has never been shy about setting ambitious targets or pursuing a bold vision for the company's future. Unfortunately, delivering the execution has proved a great deal harder - margins are still weak, growth has slowed considerably, and management has made a habit of coming up short on those targets and goals. These shares are undervalued today, and may be considerably undervalued if you believe in management's current goals, but experience has shown that investors would do well to keep a healthy skepticism.

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Volcano Still Has Plenty To Prove

Seeking Alpha: Achillion May Be The Most Underrated Biotech Left

There are broadly two types of biotech investors - the Wile E. Coyote types who see bargains everywhere and charge bravely after them and the Roadrunner types that know better than to charge off a cliff and into thin air. Watch an episode or two and you'll see how the two types fare over time.

That bring me to Achillion Pharmaceuticals (ACHN) and an opportunity that looks so good, I keep wondering if it's just a false image painted on the mountainside. There have been some definite ups and downs across the sector in the race to develop new drugs for hepatitis C (HCV), but Achillion looks like the real deal. Success with Study 007 could point to a revenue opportunity of over $1 billion, while the recent addition of a nuc to the pipeline makes it a veritable one-stop shop for the next generation of HCV therapies.

All told, Achillion looks like it could easily be worth $16 today, with upside well into the $20s with good data and an ever-present possibility of a takeout. Investors need to ask themselves why this is seemingly the one biotech with good data to not participate in the sometimes-crazy biotech bull market of the last three years, but on balance this looks like a very promising biotech with value-driving events coming later this year.

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Achillion May Be The Most Underrated Biotech Left

Seeking Alpha: Achillion Back On The Hep C Roller Coaster Of Love

With an upgrade and an initiation at "Buy" on Wednesday morning, Achillion (ACHN) is back in the good graces of at least some biotech investors. I've been favorably inclined towards Achillion for a while now, thinking that its NS3 protease inhibitor sovaprevir (aka ACH-1625) and NS5a inhibitor (ACH-3102) gave it a better-than-average chance of being a player in the hepatitis C (HCV) market or, more likely, a target for a company that fears being left on the outside of this eventual multi-billion dollar market.

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Achillion Back On The Hep C Roller Coaster Of Love

Investopedia: The Week Ahead In Healthcare

Whether you want to call it the pause that refreshes or the calm before the storm, investors should not expect as much news from the med-tech industry over the next few weeks. That said, business continues and investors still have data and information to process.

Lilly - Somewhere Between a Home Run and a Bunt 
Lilly (NYSE:LLY) reported last week that its Alzheimer's drug candidate solanezumab showed decidedly mixed performance in pivotal studies of mild-to-moderate patients. Like bapineuzumab, the drug that Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) were attempting to develop for Alzheimer's, solanezumab failed to meet its primary endpoints. Unlike bapi, though, this drug seemed to slow the pace of decline in patients with mild cases.

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Seeking Alpha: Idenix And The High-Stakes Ping-Pong Of Hep C Treatments

It's pretty remarkable just how quickly a hepatitis C (HCV) drug candidate can go from hero to villain in today's market. Investors cheered Gilead's (GILD) bold (and expensive) bid for Pharmasset ... until some concerns about the efficacy of lead drug GS-7977 popped up. Then there was Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) making its bold play for Inhibitex, only to see serious safety worries emerge on the key asset (now known as BMS-094).

Now it's the turn of Idenix (IDIX). In a case of what looks to me like guilt by association, the FDA has put lead drug IDX184 on a partial clinical hold due to worries about cardiac safety.

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Idenix And The High-Stakes Ping-Pong Of Hep C Treatments

Seeking Alpha: Achillion Pharmaceuticals - Hope, Hype, And Hep C

I've followed biotech for a long time now, and I have a hard time thinking of an example of another addressable market like hepatitis C (HCV) where investor interest has just exploded in the space of about a year. Like antisense, monoclonal antibodies, RNAi, genomics, stem cells and every other hot property in biotech, there has been no end of hope, hype, and hucksterism. Although HCV is likely to grow into a very financially significant drug target in the coming years, it's worth wondering just how much of the frenzy today can be justified in long-term valuations.

In particular, I'm curious about Achillion Pharmaceuticals (ACHN) these days. I've watched this stock for a while now and came close to buying on multiple times in the pre-2010 pre-$2 level. I underestimated just how fast this market would heat up, though, and had to re-learn a painful lesson - sometimes, you snooze and you lose.

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Achillion Pharmaceuticals: Hope, Hype, And Hep C

Seeking Alpha: Gilead's ELECTRON Data Brings Some Reality Back To The Hep C Market

Nothing good lasts forever and it looks like Gilead (GILD) has brought a little dose of reality back to the Hepatitis C market. While Hepatitis C plays like Pharmasset (acquired by Gilead), Idenix (IDIX), Achillion (ACHN), and Inhibitex (acquired by Bristol-Myers (BMY)) were white-hot throughout much of 2011 on investor enthusiasm for a new generation of drugs that hold promise for very nearly curing the disease, some disappointing data in a small study shows there's no perfect drug yet.

A Disappointing Result In A Tough Crowd
Gilead announced that a Phase II study of GS-7977 (the start drug acquired in the Pharmasset deal) and ribavirin failed to show efficacy in treating so-called non-responders (that is, HCV patients who have shown insufficient response to prior therapy). In fact, within 4 weeks of stopping treatment three-quarters of the patients (6 of 8) showed significant relapse and higher viral loads.

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Gilead's Electron Data Brings Some Reality Back To The Hep C Market

Investopedia: Bristol-Myers Pays To Patch Up A Gap

Companies developing treatments for Hepatitis C were the hottest story in biotech for 2011, and at least some of that momentum has spilled over into 2012. Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) won a competitive bidding process for Inhibitex (Nasdaq:INHX) and will be acquiring this small early-stage biotech for $2.5 billion in cash.

The Deal
The two companies announced this deal over the weekend, whereby Bristol-Myers will buy Inhibitex for $2.5 billion, or $26 per share, in cash. This valuation offers a 163% premium to Friday's close for Inhibitex shareholders and a close to an incredible run that began at less than 25 cents per share in early 2009. Although this offer is lower than Gilead's (Nasdaq:GILD) $11 billion bid for Pharmasset (Nasdaq:VRUS), Pharmasset has more drug candidates in its pipeline and is further along in clinical trials. (For related reading, see Biggest Merger And Acquisition Disasters.)


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