I hope you are right,
At present the market does not agree with you.
A wonderful post by Egomaniakos, he is long (as I am).
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I agree. The results are not reported as positive. The wording is simply to finalise results, look for subsets or confounders.
Best Case Scenario (s):
1. Overall survival was slightly better than previous historic data but not enough to be statistically better in the cohort or would require a huge sample to show minor effect and therefore not a practical proposition currently.
2. Analysis reveals that all deaths occurred in people who were either very elderly, presented very late, had extremely high viremia, had pre-existing severe disease, renal/cardiac failure, immune compromised or some combination.
3. People who died ultimately found to also be suffering from other disease or co-disease: cancer, lassa fever, malaria etc.
4. Administration protocol or expected reaction management not followed properly by Oxford.
5. Ebola is transforming and mortality in the second rainy season, and actually the baseline mortality has increased again but will not be apparent until after the trial phase ended.
Worst case scenario (s):
1. TKM-Ebola genuinely ineffective, no impact on survival
2. TKM-Ebola increases mortality by drug effect or complications with significantly worse mortality that necessitates trial cessation.
Overall I find it scientifically implausible that TKM-Guinea-Ebola had no positive effect. I suspect that the principle reason is BCS #2 but am sensible enough to be concerned about the minefield of a contribution of a WCS#2 BCS#4 combo.
Tekmira has the data as per protocol within 24hrs so I would damn well hope they are working on this themselves too and not just allowing Oxford to present "their data" on "their therapeutic" without consultation. Oxford have looked very much like they have pioneered this treatment as opposed to just being a suitable delivery vehicle.
ego
