NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[CogDiss 1188X]

That's like asking "what's the difference between buying a Purple Heart at the Pawn shop vs earning one in service to your country."

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with paying $75k to present at the Industry Expert Theatre in the back of the exhibit hall.

LF, I’ll have to piggy-back on your post since the original message has gone poof.

Re: Buying a Purple Heart. That seems like an incredibly loaded analogy with unintended but perhaps valid conclusions to be drawn.

Incredibly loaded, because it uses the sacrifices made in service to one’s country as a rhetorical weapon. Generally not a good idea in almost any circumstances.

Buying a Purple Heart instead of earning it is reprehensible. And pawn shops are typically seedy places. NWBO, reprehensible, seedy. Got it.

What it implies, beyond the obvious intention of defaming NWBO, is that the American Society of Clinical Oncology is an organization that knowingly provides an open forum for and monetarily benefits from facilitating reprehensible, seedy behavior. And apparently that’s ok?

Perhaps the secondary implication regarding ASCO isn’t far off the mark. If so, I’m not sure I’m ok with it.

BTW, you’re the second person to make such an implication regarding ASCO and Pharma. Here’s the story of the first time.

I attended an ASCO conference back in the day. Between sessions, I read through the posters presenting early animal and trial data. By chance, I bumped into the oncologist I had been in contact with many times. I’ll call him Dr Q.

Our relationship was closer than typical between an oncologist and a patient advocate. I was relatively well-informed for not being a professional in the field and he was a leader in pushing it in new directions, so he was open to the out-of-the-box ideas I was suggesting. Most of them he was already familiar with; some of them he wasn’t and a couple he thought were patentable. (I say all this to give color to our relationship and in service to the story.)

He introduced me to a doctor he was with who was also a very close friend of his. I’ll call him Dr P. I was familiar with Dr P by reputation because he too was pursuing innovative solutions to treating cancer and I had come across his work several times in my readings.

In introducing me to Dr P, Dr Q mentioned how committed I was to finding solutions wherever they may be and indicated that, in essence, we were all on the same page in our thinking, not being bound by the severe limits of mainstream oncology.

My admiration for Dr P no doubt came through as I mentioned a couple of the things he had done of which I thought highly.

We chatted briefly about a few of the more interesting leads we had found at the conference. In taking their leave, Dr P, obviously feeling comfortable enough to let his guard down in front of someone from the patient side of the equation, said to Dr Q, “Should we head to the exhibit floor (where all the drug companies have their “huge” booths) and prostitute ourselves or blow out of here?”

They left, apparently feeling that ASCO’s house of prostitution for pharma didn’t have enough allure that day.