Ayala Pharmaceuticals Inc (ADXS)

[hovacre]

Well, in this case the intended audience is clinical scientists, oncologists, and other professionals, and the "mere mortals" are totally ancillary to the mission of disseminating cancer research findings. The medical press and companies themselves will take up the legwork of digesting the information for the public, which is what I personally view as part of my job.

The problem is that the context is quite complicated. To have a full grasp of the situation, you need to know every CRPC option, how many of those patients have failed, and you need to know every scrap of info known about pembro to date, which isn't that much.

And then the question becomes...what is comparable? We have phase 1 data for pembro in CRPC, but it's worth very little in this context. It's complicated even for the doctors, and no amount of dumbing it down will make it less complicated. It's a high-level challenge that confounds even trained cancer doctors (which is why I have my day job).

Smart people on this MB, who follow the company closely, are left to debate if the news is good, ok or mediocre.

This is because, at this time, we do not and CANNOT know whether the data are great. They simply are, because we don't have the context we need. And without a randomized trial, the best we can do is point out features of the data that look promising.

Is that frustrating? You bet! I would love to have 100% clear answers, but these data are complicated. It's kind of like debating foreign policy and learning more about other countries' cultures that factor into your debate. No matter how much you know, there's almost always some insight that someone else has that can change the picture at least subtly.