Vertex's Clinical Data Better Than Initially Expected: FDA Advisory Panel

Vertex shares showed the love, from the FDA Advisory Panel -- per Reuters:

. . . .Vertex shares rose 12 percent to their highest level in a decade after comments from Food and Drug Administration staff on Tuesday that analysts said favored the medicine's approval.

Shares of Merck, whose rival hepatitis C treatment also faces an FDA panel's review this week, rose 2.2 percent. . . .

Vertex's telaprevir eliminated the hepatitis C virus in 79 percent of newly treated patients, FDA reviewers said. That was higher than the 75 percent Vertex reported earlier because the FDA used a different cure rate calculation. . . .

Tomorrow, and Thursday, will prove to be very enlightening -- as we see the panel's "Body English". . . . here is some of it, in the questions the committee will ponder, as it reviews Telaprevir.