Boceprevir is priced high

[Anonymous]

You can typically only look at relative efficacy by comparing one directly against the other in the same trial. Comparing one drugs relative performance against control versus another requires far more data than clinical trials generate. This is usually the stuff of meta-analyses. Companies would prefer to keep it cloudy for fear of clearly losing the contest. Customers would prefer to make it clear because they desire the best therapy.

Far too much of the medical knowledge that becomes "common physicians' knowledge" is statistically too weak for the claims that are made for it. And what % of physicians have ever studied statistics.

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

We know there is no head to head comparison; however intuitively the gap is far too wide to ignore. There is a reason that the FDA seems to be more impressed with the Vertex drug, ALL wall street analysts believe the merck will get no more than 25% of the market. The fact of the matter is that any and virtual all objective observers believe that vertex will simply dominate this fight. SO DO I! and I do not work for vertex.