I think one of the bigger challenges facing Unity is that dasatinib plus quercetin may be just as good as anything they are rolling out. All of the animal studies of senolytic compounds fall into the category of either no meaningful effect or the category of ~25% clearance in selected tissues.
Small molecule development, in the sense of changing the parameters of your candidate in a desired direction in a class of molecules, is slow and expensive and to a certain extent reliant on good fortune. You can't just reliably and cheaply dial up the effectiveness or adjust with tissue specificity.
In a world in which dasatinib/quercetin, which costs ~$100 for a dose you take every year at most, does as well as the Unity candidates, will Unity be able to charge the high costs at a great enough volume required to keep the investors happy? Seems unlikely.
I think Oisin Biotechnologies turning up a year or two later in the clinic with a far superior gene therapy product, clearing near all senescent cells in near all tissues, and which can be adjusted rapidly and at low cost, is less of a threat. The market, every human being much over the age of 40, is truly enormous, and several large companies could operate without bumping into one another all that much.
Is dasatinib + querceptin approved to treat any indications unity is studying / is their clinical data? If not then would be hard for them to compete with an approved drug unless they have some really great clinical data. Also if unity is less toxic that might be better than marginally better effectiveness in the chronic indications they're pursuing
Not familiar with Oisin, what is their vector? Does it enable repeat dosing?
Small molecule development, in the sense of changing the parameters of your candidate in a desired direction in a class of molecules, is slow and expensive and to a certain extent reliant on good fortune. You can't just reliably and cheaply dial up the effectiveness or adjust with tissue specificity.
In a world in which dasatinib/quercetin, which costs ~$100 for a dose you take every year at most, does as well as the Unity candidates, will Unity be able to charge the high costs at a great enough volume required to keep the investors happy? Seems unlikely.
I think Oisin Biotechnologies turning up a year or two later in the clinic with a far superior gene therapy product, clearing near all senescent cells in near all tissues, and which can be adjusted rapidly and at low cost, is less of a threat. The market, every human being much over the age of 40, is truly enormous, and several large companies could operate without bumping into one another all that much.