Hep C Rivals Nip at Vertex

BOSTON -- It was a strange weekend at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease. There wasn't much clinical data presented, at least data of interest to investors. Instead, all of the Wall Street action was taking place in a few hotel conference rooms within walking distance of the convention center.

That's where a small army of hepatitis C doctors were shuttling in and out of hour-long Q&A sessions with buy-side investors eager to hear what's hot -- and not -- in hepatitis C.

Sadly, I'm not allowed into these exclusive meetings. (I tried, trust me.) But thankfully I have some good investor sources in those rooms gracious enough to fill me in on the chatter from some of the world's leading hepatitis C authorities.

Here's the lowdown, so far:

It's definitely been a tough weekend for Vertex Pharmaceuticals(VRTX):

For starters, there was the data from the two phase II studies of telaprevir released Friday, which, at best, met the low end of Wall Street's expectations in terms of the percentage of hepatitis patients -- 61% and 65% -- reporting "cures." The stock fell almost 9% to $28.80 as a result.

[The actual data presentations from these two studies of telaprevir are scheduled for this morning and Tuesday.]

On Saturday and Sunday, the major buzz was about competing drugs -- all belonging to the same protease inhibitor class of direct antivirals as telaprevir -- that are coming up behind, and they are coming fast.

This has the potential to create problems for Vertex because while the company might be able to get telaprevir approved first, its lead could be short-lived.