Had a telephone interview with Vince Anzalone on Friday. I wanted to follow-up with him regarding a few questions I had after Analyst Day. Some of the answers are quite revealing, and I will break up the interview in a few posts, so enjoy.
I told Vince that I wasn't entirely convinced of the argument they provided regarding their new "dimer" molecule. What I didn't buy was that 6 mg/kg of the dimer drug was equivalent to two 3 mg/kg doses of the monomer, particularly since the dimer has twice as many triggers. So I therefore wanted to know if there were any advantages with regarding to being able to skip a step when testing the dimer in the clinic. Vince's confirmed that with the dimer, Arrowhead can begin testing a combo drug immediately, whereas two monomer drugs would need to be first tested individually before you can test the combo. This is clearly a big advantage, as Arrowhead is able to save at least 9-12 months time in the clinic, and it also saves on costs for having to run two additional phase 1 safety trials. Since this info was not featured in the presentation, I suggested to Vince that this significant piece of news should be included in future presentation about the dimer. Vince further elaborated that the dimer allows for simultaneous release of both triggers, and that this can be important when you're trying to knock down two genes at the same time, as the desired effectiveness may not be achieved if the timing is off. Vince also stated that the dimer molecule has a similar configuration as their ARO-HBV drug that has two triggers, except that the dimer knocks down two genes, instead of one at two different locations.
Conclusion: the new "dimer" molecule not only allows Arrowhead to target additional diseases with simultaneous targeting of two genes, but they're able to save about a year's time in the clinic.
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