RE:RE:Where is the plan to reduceI think you're shortchanging it. We all now it has to still prove itself in humans but the combo trials are a bit different since they are with already marketed and huge drugs out there. If you increase their efficacy or expand their market, that's an interesting development commercially and the partner woudl be the one that will help fund that from the lab to the patient. It's not as costly at that level of entry and possibly less risky than monotherapy trial. When your're talking about the largest market for an existing cancer drug, it's intriguing to many. I don't expect anything quick, but it's building some pipeline value back up.
Nonetheless, Cybrexa got a deal with 18 patient data, Bicycles latest with Novartis ($50mil upfront) was purely to partner at the pre-clinical level for all radioisotope versions (so even earlier in the process). To be fair, they have two P 1/2 trials for others going on so that helps. But they got some in areas like opthamology only on pre-clinical results. So it happens. I wouldn't expect it here yet, but maybe down the line. Pretty clearly it helps a whole lot if you show efficacy alone in humans and the circle of interested partners would be smaller without that, but not non-existant. Lot's take a drug from lab to clinic as it's the biggest value-additive jump if successful. You can demand the best terms for the money you're putting in.
I'm not suggesting being polyanna about it as they still have a lot to prove to anyone and all of us, but just that depending on what we learn on the AACR poster results around the immunotherapy project, it could be quite important and valuable, but only in the future not the next 6 months. The only numbers I saw on the abstract were around a large increase in survival rates. Hopefully there's a few other tidbits in their charts and data to latch on to and assess if it is of value or not. Right now, it's up in the air.