RE: Someone owes me a beerthank you for going to the trouble of typing out BT's talk.
to me there is very little new info to get excited about - in fact, i'm surprised by the many references still to animal model testing and results.
a couple of things stuck out to me though, that i missed listening to it.
And while it?s not statistically significant, when you have a survival expectation of three months, it?s certainly getting into the ?interesting? zone. So we?re quite anxious to get further results out of that study.
i imagine most of his audience was not aware of how long it has taken them to get the very small, statistically insignificant results he provided, and the costly delays. in addition, he did not offer any suggestion as to the timetable for the completion of the ph II prostate, glio or systemic trials, other than to say they had $20M in cash as of Sep 30, which he expected to last until April 2006.
that suggests a burn rate of $667K Cdn a month for the next 30 months - which is roughly equivalent to their current burn rate (before taking into account $US costs of US glio trial, or the systemic ph II trial, presumably also planned for the US.)
i don't think that is a realistic burn rate and if i'm one of the analysts listening to his presentation, i question such an optimistic view of their cash position (and wonder why they have to had to go to market 4 times in less than a year to raise such a small amount of money.)
with regard to the interim prostate results
the fifth patient had their PSA levels drop dramatically and the gland actually shrank by over half in its size, but we didn?t find any apoptosis. Now one has to wonder whether we just missed it, or whether there is something else going on. However, the patient wasn?t complaining about the mechanism of action, they were, however, quite delighted that their gland had shrank considerably.
having earlier stated that the entire prostate gland was removed as part of the standard proceudre of the trial, how happy can someone really be about the shrinkage of a gland that they no longer have?
maybe BT thinks when he talks to non-science, financial types that his
subject matter is so above them that they won't catch basic things that don't make a lot of sense, but if he does, he is not as bright as he might think he is.
if i was a trial enrollee, and was told that the experimental treatment worked so well that it had reduced my gland by half, i might be thrilled, but i'd also be a little pissed about the side effects i might be suffering from a prostectomy (incontinence & impotence), knowing that it might not have been necessary to remove the prostate, and i might be even more pissed given how well REOLYSIN apparently works, why it is taking so long to make it through trials & approvals, thereby potentially exposing other men to the same serious side effects.
yea, a presentation of old news is better than nothing when they apparently have little new developments to share, but after reading the transcript of BT's presentation, it comes across more as something a pre-med student would present in applying for financial assistance, than a company serious about moving their research and product to credibility & commercialization.
imo, BT has shown again he is in over his head, and what's worse, i think he is reluctant to relinquish control to someone capable of moving things along as quickly as possible, at the expense of onc shareholders and cancer patients.