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poker lessons

before Trin's hasty departure(s) she wisely pointed out that I'm on tx and not making  sense so  take the following with a grain of salt. If anyone can show me where I'm making a  mistake I'll be grateful - so far   it looks to me as if Merck should be taking poker lessons from Vertex's Bob Kaufman.

First there's the issue of how he convinced the street tela response among naives was 79% when vertex's own data indicates at least 5% less, but never mind that.

An  unanswered question that's been rattling around here for a while is what happened to the 118 pts in ILLUMINATE who did not make the eRVR cutoff (und at w4 and w12). When miked  asked for questions before the  ambassador intro I suggested that one  but apparently discussion never reached analysis of the trial data. l. However now that the 147 page Vertex submission is available on the fda site:
http://www.fda.gov/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/Drugs/AntiviralDrugsAdvisoryCommittee/ucm252559.htm
we should finally  have an answer.

ILLUMINATE is now labeled Study 111 in the FDA docs. A description of the study, its  design etc. starts on page 69. The 118 pts who did not make eRVR were assigned to 12+48 and labeled "eRVR-". There was no control arm hence no control SVR stats. Figure 17 tells us the overall ILLUMINATE SVR rate was 74%, confirmed in the FDA review, and then goes on to justify why 24 is not inferior to 48 among the eRVRs.

However, it seems that at no point is the SVR statistic for the eRVR- subgroup ever given. Tables 18 and 19 tell us many details about them (genotype, fibrosis, race, etc.) but never answer the main question.

The FDA review includes the statement :"Of the 40% of subjects not achieving eRVR and assigned to receive T12/PR48, about 64% achieved SVR." but there doesn't seem to be any source for that statement in the Vertex submission. Anyone see it?
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Avatar universal
yes, an  overall 74% SVR rate for ILLUMINATE has been reported all along. However what Vertex never reported, and appears to have made less than glaringly obvious here, is what happened to the eRVR- subset - those who didn't go und by w4 and stay und at w12 (not a small group) among them, 78 of 118,  66%,  got SVR.
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Avatar universal
many thanks for spotting that -  Trin was obviously right.  Table 19, on page 74,  gives the answer. Hidden in plain view - Vertex must have been thinking we'd all enjoy an  Easter egg hunt!

That 66%is likely to be important  to many (about 40%) of naives starting triple tx : you get to w4 and are not und: do you push on? After 8 more weeks of  selecting PI-resistant virions if you don't make SVR chances are you'll have a high proportion of them .

The FDA review did say, 'about 64%' so they're still right. Actually for all the grousing about incompetent government that review,  IMO, was a great example of effective   government service.
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419309 tn?1326503291
My calculations were 65 and 66 percent, but the willing's post stated FDA stated 'about 64%.'
Hey, what's 1% between drug companies, right? ;)
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1491755 tn?1333201362
398/540=73.7%

Hasn't that always been the claim ?
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1491755 tn?1333201362
What's wrong with the math ?
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419309 tn?1326503291
Table 19 gives the SVR rates of all four groups.  

If you look carefully, the 2nd column of numbers under the 12+48 "eRVR-" shows that 8 out of 10 low VL were SVR; 70 of the 108 high VL were SVR (65%).  Total SVR from that group of 118 was 78 (66%).  Maybe the FDA is just lousy at math...?
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1491755 tn?1333201362
Wow page 74 sure has some interesting stats.  We sure our much better off with Tela !
Helpful - 0
1491755 tn?1333201362
Thanks for the post. I guess the bottom line is Tela is more effective than SOC.  It does scare me when people call it a "cure".
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