Rutherrin or bust? Have no trepidation as to the outcome of tomorrow`s Quarterly as in Pharma terms TLT is valued as if it has already failed - and it hasn’t.
Apart from 100% rights to Rutherrin which we are told can be intravenously injected to selectively accumulate in deep seated tumour and then activated by low-dose x-ray (what candidate for treatment of the serious indications to be thus addressed wouldn’t want this option if it were offered to them now?) the Company owns the ability to block all use in North America and elsewhere of the familial metal-based compounds developed by Professor Sherri McFarland until 2054.
That the potential intellectual property value of the Company is thereby huge does not allay a persisting serious concern that by going with a lesser compound in their first and vital Clinical Trial in such a setting it might have risked the viability of the Company as a whole. Did suggest here at the time that if someone had wished to build performance ceilings and potential pitfalls into what was already a highly experimental investigation (while doubtless the very opposite intention of our esteemed MSAB) they could scarcely have done better.
Wrote to SS at the beginning of July this year and asked (extracts) :
‘I watched your AGM Presentation with some concern. Despite the now quite considerable number of Centres where recruitment for the NMIBC Trial can take place it appears to have lost momentum.
Was the Trial perhaps compromised by the problems at the start or is the treatment not quite sufficient? Even when happy to confine judgement to those patients optimally treated under the Clinical Protocol it is a struggle to identify which these are…..’
‘….might it be time to grasp the nettle and terminate the NMIBC Trial? Long term holders did discuss at the start why Rutherrin was never used in this indication (I`m sure there were good reasons) given its` evident superiority even back then. Might it be time to cut losses and devote the entirety of our limited resources to it now?’
Didn’t receive consent to publish his response so won’t do so but suffice to say that his reply left me little the wiser beyond an impression that the NMIBC Trial is likely to continue. As much as anyone here am hoping that tomorrow’s Quarterly will provide the first indications that this has been and remains the correct strategy.