RE: MORE on AGMIt is difficult for me to believe that the management, directors and consultants of ONC somehow are missing opportunities to get the drug to market any sooner. There's a lot more expertise, plus experience, from which to draw than when they initially began trials in Canada
considering that their beancounter came up with the idea for one of their reovirus patents, i'm not sure whether that means the rest of the management team is as on the "ball" as you suggest, or we have a budding viral oncologist miscast as the CFO - maybe thats why they added two more beancounters to the BOD in Dinning & Lievonen
more seriously, i think the NIH & UK trials are steps in the right direction, but i too like mm & others wonder why they decided to not focus and target a deadly cancer such as pancreatic, which seems (along with glio) to be one of the best candidates to respond to reovirus treatment and to me offers the fastest route to approval & commercialization.
I understand that pancreatic cancer is not a good candidate for testing metastisized cancer since people likely will die from it before it gets a chance to spread. But why they are focusing their systemic testing on cancer that has metastisized, where the results (on both the original cancer & the metastisized cancer) likely won’t be as compelling because they may & likely won’t have the same level of RAS activation as say pancreatic cancer, escapes me.
Testing metastisized cancers seems to me to be the
next logical step after successful systemic treatment of an "un-metastisized?" yet aggressive cancer like pancreatic. With the limited resources they have, getting the biggest bang (best results) for the buck is important, and getting them earlier rather than later is even more important – both in terms of saving lives, recognition as a credible and viable life-extending and even life-saving cancer treatment, which would serve as an impetus to higher share prices, and minimize shareholder dilution – it’s a win, win, win, win scenario, yet they have chosen and used scarce resources on localized prostate and now metastisized cancers.
The only plausible explanation I can think of for their approach is as MC hinted at - based on trying to satisfy the interests of their (two) potential partners.
If that is in fact the case, I fear that by hitching their wagon this early to one or two partners prematurely disposes them to being taken for a ride, rather than doing the driving. it seems to me they should be in the driver’s seat, but for some reason want to take a back seat. That would also explain their “low key” approach to virtually everything they have done, and the request for shareholders to approve 50% dilution.
I just don’t trust these guys that much when it comes down to doing what is best for shareholders (and perhaps not technically being shareholders themselves has something to do with that)
I would much rather see them use the NIH & UK trials as leverage over a potential partner, by using those trials to produce credible & statistically significant ph II results that would be impossible for the scientific and investment communities to ignore (and seems to me glio & pancreatic cancers offer the best opportunities for that to happen). then they could open up the bidding to interested parties.
Instead, we get a 2 year, 6 patient localized ph II prostate trial, a US ph I glio trial that hasn’t been approved even after 2 years, and now a ph I systemic trial on metastisized cancers where the results hopefully will be good, but it seems they have again failed to optimize their target and imo, risk unecessary problems, delays, sub-optimal results, etc.
I think aventis is calling the clinical shots, so to speak – perhaps not the worst thing, but it remains to be seen if it is the best thing for oncy shareholders.