gopgrip, What happened at ASCO has been mischaracterized by several recent posts in my opinion, so it’s important to remember what was going on at the time of ASCO 2018 for a little context. The Right to Try Legislative process was in the news for months leading up to ASCO 2018, and on May 30, 2018, (the day after ASCO started) President Trump signed S.204, the Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn and Matthew Bellina Right to Try Act. Although 41 states had already passed Right to Try laws, the signing of S.204 made Right to Try the law of the land, creating a uniform system for terminal patients seeking access to investigational treatments, and it opened new pathways for terminally ill patients who had exhausted their government-approved options, and who couldn’t get into a clinical trial, access to treatments. History has since proved otherwise, but that was what was believed at the time.
So Linda Powers brought to ASCO four cancer patients and a family member of a cancer patient to who were not allowed into the clinical trial, but who still received DCVax, to give testimonials about their very emotional near-death experiences with cancer, and who received a new lease on life thanks to DCVax. And after they all spoke, Dr. Ashkan, a lead investigator in the clinical trial ended his remarks as follows:
Dr. Keyoumars Ashkan
“We also have to work with the regulatory bodies, and we probably ought to do that now, right, not even waiting, because we want this to be available to all the patients. Again, while it’s very nice about these studies… yes, those patients who are in better prognostic groups are going to benefit more… but there is a benefit to all patients. We want this available to absolutely everybody. And absolutely everybody cannot afford everything. So the cost needs to be brought right down, and again, I’m going to be fighting for that, because I want this available to all my patients. We need to get the prices down, work with the regulatory bodies, approve it at a price which patients can afford. And I think that’s incredibly important. And you know what? I think you have to do all that… why? Because we owe it to these guys [points to the patients on the stage]. Thanks very much.”
And then Linda Powers closed the presentation with this:
Linda Powers
??“Well that concludes our program for today. I wanted to say, on behalf of the whole Northwest Bio team that we’re really, really grateful to all our patients. Our patients are our best ambassadors, our best advocates. They tend to be really passionate, and very helpful in telling fellow patients about the treatment and we’re really grateful that they were all able to share their stories with us. We’re also grateful the investigators in the trial, a number of who are here with us, including the principal investigator Linda Liau who could not be with us today. Keymour is the lead investigator in Europe. We were really blessed to have 69 co-authors on that publication last week. That’s pretty unheard of. And we even had a couple who said afterwards, Hey I wanted to be on it” so 69 co-authors among our investigators, meaning, just as Keymour said, their own personal experience with their own patients – it’s the picture that Marnix described for you.
I want to just reiterate what I said at the beginning. As a company, we fully endorse, and it is our goal, for this technology to be widely available to patients. We don’t want this to be a treatment of last resort. We want this to be a frontline treatment. We’ve worked long and hard to make it practical. There’s only one manufacturing process per patient. We manufacture the whole set of doses for multi-year treatment in one batch. Then we freeze those doses, and we’ve validated the frozen shelf-life for years. So then it’s just an off-the-shelf product out of the freezer, although it’s fully personalized for that patient. So we’ve worked for years and years to try and make this a very practical product to be widely available.
Right now, it’s made by hand. That is a very obviously, expensive process. It’s the same thing that the T cell people are dealing with. And there will be steps in the future, whether it’s economies of scale, whether it’s closing the system and having to have clean rooms with people in space suits making this by hand, which is what it is today, or full end-to-end automation. So there’s a lot of steps to be done in the future. I would say to anyone who can help us, help us provide funding, provide technical support, help spread the word, help us. We want to get this to everyone. Thank you.”
So it was hardly a “meltdown” as BSB called it, and in my opinion, it was not unprofessional or inappropriate either. Perhaps it was an emotional plea and showed vulnerability, but it was sincere and heartfelt, and it’s obvious she cares deeply about helping cancer patients. I personally appreciate that.
