Roche can be considered the bellwether of how Big Pharma/Biotech is looking at RNAi Therapeutics for rejuvenating their pipeline, and their moves will be closely watched by the investor community. I therefore found it extremely interesting what a Media Day presentation in 2009 revealed about their RNAi Therapeutics intentions. This presentation was given by Lee Babiss (President & Global Head of Roche Pharma Research) who has been a champion of RNAi Therapeutics at Roche. It is worth noting though that according to musings on the cafepharma discussion board, he has unfortunately left the company.
In delivery, it is, however, not all about liposomal delivery. Roche’s dynamic polyconjugates were highlighted in rhesus monkey studies which showed quite significant (>90%) and very prolonged (almost maximal at 3 weeks although this could be repeat administration data) knockdown, albeit at the relatively high doses of 20mg/kg. siRNAs coupled to antibodies were also highlighted in cancer applications which together with SNALP and DPCs may form Roche’s 3-legged stool of siRNA delivery.
Alright, this is it for me in 2009. I would like to thank everybody for reading some of the highly speculative stuff and who have made writing the blog particularly interesting to me either through your comments or by personal contact. I look forward to what promises to be a very exciting year in RNAi Therapeutics.
2 comments:
Dirk
Do you see the year 2009 as the year reality set in for the RNAi space? I remember how the buzz of monoclonal antibodies fell off for a few years after initial excitement and high related share prices.
Is RNAi that far off that institutional investors would rather wait for progress before committing to the space? Obvious to ne the leader ALNY has seen the glow come off its stock price as it has been with others. TKM
is like a lottery ticket to me.
Care to comment?
I believe you are right in that RNAi, after some of the buzz it rightly generated, is going through a phase in its development where investors have been increasingly reminded of the realities of the lengthy drug development process in the absence of new blockbuster deals and disappointment around some of the first RNAi Therapeutics drug candidates. All this is probably normal for a new exciting class of drugs, and your analogy to MAbs is probably right on. But like MAbs, there is no way that such a technology is going to ever disappear from the drug development landscape and will eventually succeed big. Of course, it does not immediately follow from that that NOW is the right time to invest.
I agree that TKM is a 'speculative' investment, but at the same time IMO all stock investments are 'speculative' and there is nothing wrong with that categorization as long as one knows a company fairly well. Much better than an investment in many banks 4-5 years ago which were deemed to be 'safe', 'quality' investments- a justification for lowering expected returns. I just believe that in this part of the its development, e.g. with the delivery and innate immunity challenge, TKM presents the best risk:reward at the moment. I'd rather have 5 lottery tickets such as TKM in my portfolio than an equal number of 'safe' stocks.
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