As we anticipated in our December review of the Gilead-Pharmasset deal (see Media Coverage at www.alliance4growth.com), the hunt for new anti-HCV drugs is on with this acquisition - In all fairness, we weren't the only ones to anticipate other bold, high premium deals in this area -
BMS pays a quarter of what Gilead had to "bid" to win the Pharmasset contest. This can be explained by the fact that the Pharmasset program has completed Phase II and initiated Phase III whereas the Inhibitex compound is at the late stage of a Phase 1b study and a more regulatory-friendly more potent isomer is yet to reach the clinic.
Two comments come to mind:
1- it's not over and we can speculate that the Achillion and Idenix business development groups and leaderships are fairly busy at this time. If I were to speculate further, I would not be surprised that a couple of Japanese companies are in the hunt.
2- once again, this hunt exemplifies the fact that the big pharmas are quicker at addressing threats than at seizing new opportunities - probably related to their internal decision process and who from marketing or R&D has a better shot at convincing leadership.
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