Worldwide production of MABs by 2020 is projected at $125 billion, and PPHMs share of that should increase proportionately, if not faster. PPHM shift to MAB manufacturing is a very wise business decision, and obviously a sea-change in the company's direction. PPHM has put several MABs out there for consideration, and has patent protection on many other potential MABs in the antiphospholipid MAB space which, if proven effective in some therapeutic capacity, can easily be manufactured by Avid. There is no question in my mind that Bavi-, as such, has limited value in treatment of advanced solid tumors. However, I do believe it probably will have therapeutic value in preventing growth and development of early solid tumors, and possibly in other chronic inflammatory states, and that PPHMs entire aminophospholipid platform and patent portfolio has value. As mentioned here several times, I have been involved peripherally in, and followed the I-O field since 1970, when BCG was being investigated as a "non-specific immunological adjunct", and with only a few exceptions for solid tumors, not much progress has been made in nearly a half century. The deck is loaded against any I-O agent in trials against patients with advanced solid tumors and already compromised immune systems. If Bavi is successfully coupled with other agents in the I-O field, and causes only an incremental improvement in survival, who will be able to afford the price of two agents for a short increase in survival? If Bavi is going to be used successfully it will probably be used when sub-centimeter diameter tumors are detected by blood tests rather than imaging. It is also possible/probable that Bavi- could significantly improve over-all survival in cancer surgery and irradiation. I would love to be proven wrong about much of the above because I am still heavily invested, but there appears to be considerable wishful thinking here about Bavi- despite hard, cold facts.
MAbs. 2015 Jan-Feb; 7(1): 9–14.
Published online 2014 Dec 20. doi: 10.4161/19420862.2015.989042
PMCID: PMC4622599
The therapeutic monoclonal antibody market
Dawn M Ecker, Susan Dana Jones, and Howard L Levine*
