RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Sad newsI have spoken with Christian before and he seems quite serious to me. I believe he and his team know what they are doing. The standard for these Phase I cancer trials is have all comers participate. There is probably a reason for that. As for Mr. Snyder, in the interview he gave, he hinted at his altruistic reason for participating in the trial. Even though we do not know his cause of death, we do not know what organs might already have been damaged in March, we don't know where the cancer had already spread, probably Mr. Snyder and his oncology team knew the extend of his disease and how much time would have had left. Perhaps, for him this was like a 3-point shot from half-court at the buzzer. I admire him for fighting until the end and for helping others in doing so. His death does not shed any light to us how the trial is going, but perhaps Thera has gotten some valuable data from his blood work in his final weeks of life.
jfm1330 wrote: This is the reverse side of the publicity made on the first dosing on this patient. It also put forward the question as to why they are not testing patients for sortilin overexpression on tumors before selecting them? In this case, it was even worse, they took a type of cancer that was never in their list of cancers with possible sortilin overexpression. Also, the doses that he was given are the lowest possible ones, so probably unefficacious even on a patient with the proper cancer. That being said, maybe the patient decided to make an altruistic action knowing it would not change much for him, but it would be his last contribution in helping other. A way to give a purpose to his last weeks on earth, So I thank him for that.
Now, Thera needs to get serious and start testing for sortilin overexpression on the tumors of the patients they will select. Levesque said in his last chat that they will do it later on in the phase I. In my view, they need to start doing it right now! Making sure to keep the whole thing private would also be a good idea.