The question concerning " where's Matt"?
Quite frankly a useless distraction.
They ( Onc mangement & B.O.D ) put in place a substitute power of attorney , prior to his announced medical leave.
Understand, Matt did the original study on Pela , discovered in 1998/99, that the virus onky replicates in cancer cells.
Meaning it can be administered I.V. : does not need to be intertumoural. It finds the cancer!
He went on, with colegues to firm oncolytics biotech.
One mission, to prove efficacy & get it to market as a cancer treatment.
For Matt to be away from his life's work is a very serious situation.
Meaning he is not at all well.
They did put in place the legal POA,
The science side?
Sufice to day, the trials in co- therapy , within the last 5+ years are not managed by Onc at all.
Yes they provide funding, guidance etc. agencies such as SOLTI, CGAR & with lots of input from Roche.run the trials.....at mutiple institutions across the globe.
The most recent and strongest outcome is with Roche p, within the goblet trial, for pancreatic cancer.
Yes they did prove efficacy, actually 3x better than the inplace standard of care.
That is why they were granted $5million to add an additional arm. AND, strong support & colaborations with CGAR to run the modified phase 3 trial ASAP.
Yes a lot of time was lost determining Pela to be working as a priming co- theraoy & not a mono- lysis treatement.
Drug Development is like that. Very risky, many unknowns. I'll refer to thylidamide as an example.
stepping out of one's skin is a hard way to view the world & others.
Easy to throw stones & insults. I do ask the question, Could you have done better?
Matt is off sick. He left Onc in as best possible position to carry on.
like us, he is a person & deserves respect