NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[kabunushi]

Just my 2 cents, but all this speculation is nothing but totally unfounded speculation, i.e. that Duffy's employment move to NWBO is somehow sponsored or encouraged in any way by Merck. It's possible but imo very far from the simplest explanation.

IMO it's much more likely that Duffy came to know about NWBO personally and believes fairly strongly that dc-vax has a future, enough so that he is willing to make a big career move from a very solid position to something far more speculative. He was willing to risk what was presumably a very solid position at BP to move into a speculative but probably much more rewarding position should NWBO succeed. I admit that it's possible that this signals cooperation between MRK and NWBO but imo that is very unlikely vs the much simpler scenario where Duffy is ambitious and made a very aggressive career move for purely personal reasons, finding a really good fit at NWBO and the chance to get in on a possible hypergrowth take-off of a revolutionary therapy. Both massively more exciting and rewarding in many ways, I would think.

Even without imagining a deeper MRK connection, this hire is imo a huge testimony of personal belief on the part of Dr. Duffy, who seems to be no dummy, that NWBO is on the launch pad with rockets warming up for takeoff.