As the clock ticks on top-line Phase III data from Actelion Ltd. with Tracleer (bosentan) in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the FDA last week put InterMune Inc. on notice that an advisory panel in March will take up the case of its compound, pirfenidone, which stands a regulatory step ahead in the race to the IPF market.

Last week, Wall Street slammed Poniard Pharmaceuticals Inc. after the company disclosed apparently good news: an endpoint met in the Phase II trial with picoplatin in metastatic colorectal cancer. It was anything but the first time that the wider world reflexively failed - at least from the company's point of view - to understand and appreciate study data.