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It was created at a small pharma company called Pharmasset. The founders also worked on some of the AIDs drugs in the early 90s, and it's based on the same chem
by georgewfraser 12y ago
It was created at a small pharma company called Pharmasset. The founders also worked on some of the AIDs drugs in the early 90s, and it's based on the same chemistry: nucleic acid analogues. They worked on a variety of drugs, this was their big winner. It was bought by Gilead for $11b at a time when only one phase 2 trial had completed and about 12 patients had been cured for a couple months. It's important to point out that it was by no means a sure thing, and indeed many of these patients relapsed. Only by combining it with an older drug were they able to get these high cure rates.
- busyant 12y agoBack in 2012 (I think), I thought it was insane that they were willing to pay $11B for Pharmasset based on Phase 2 data. At the very least, it was a ballsy move that has generated about 6 billion in revenue in just the 1st 6 months on market in the U.S. Note that Bristol Myers Squibb paid about 2.5Billion to acquire a competing company (Inhibitex) and that drug had to be junked for safety issues shortly after the acquisition.