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Re: GERNRetired, As I have noted in previous posts, one of the diseases GERN is targeting is MF (myelofibrosis). The only approved drug for this disease is JAKAFI which is owned by INCY. This drug is witnessing rapid sales and will soon approach over $1 Billion in annual revenues. As I have also previously observed, the problem with JAKAFI is it only treats some of the symptoms of the disease and none of the underlying causes. GERN’s drug (Imetelstat) appears to treat some of the causes of the disease, and has produced complete and partial remissions in some patients. That is a remarkable result and one never before witnessed. The other major problem with JAKAFI is many patients become refractory to the drug. In short, the drug no longer works for these patients – at which point they have an average life expectancy of seven months. As you are aware GERN and its partner Janssen Biotech (a division of JNJ) are conducting an on-going clinical trial of Imetelstat directed at these patients – patients who have become refractory to JAKAFI and have no other recourse. These patients are the sickest of the sick. This trial is continuing and appears to be producing favorable results. That, in turn, may pave the way for some type of accelerated approval. Janssen is presently providing data to the FDA as to how to proceed. That, obviously, is an encouraging sign. Janssen would not be providing such data to the FDA if the data was negative as there would be no point in so doing. The other market GERN is targeting is MDS (myelodysplastic syndromes.) All of the evidence to date suggests this trial is going well. MDS presents an even larger market than MF. (It should be noted, by the way, that MDS may progress to AML which is obviously very bad news for such patients.) All of these diseases have high unmet medical needs. Finally, it is hoped that Imetelstat may be a platform drug – a drug used in multiple indications. Janssen, for example, recently completed a pre-clinical study using Imetelstat and Venetoclax for the treatment of AML (acute myeloid leukemia). According to Janssen: “To our knowledge, this is the first investigation combining imetelstat with venetoclax in AML, and the results demonstrated a synergistic effect on induction of apoptosis in cell lines and patient samples in vitro, which translated into prolonged survival in xenograft models, thus providing a strong rationale for clinical exploration of this combination.” http://www.abstractsonline.com/pp8/#!/4292/presentation/6931 So. The bottom line is what is all this worth? I don’t know yet. The story is still playing out. The stock on Friday closed at $2.56. All I can sate is this stock is going to be worth a great deal more than that if any of the above expectations come to fruition. An eventual buy-out of GERN by JNJ would also not be surprising. New cancer drugs often produce very high buy-out numbers. Finally, here is a good source of information about GERN: |
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Msg # | Subject | Author | Recs | Date Posted |
20910 | Re: GERN | retire4now | 2 | 5/1/2017 9:01:29 AM |