Pluristem Therapeutics Inc (PSTI)

[skitahoe]

I'm not a technical expert and no nothing about what Athersys is doing, but I do believe in competition, so both should be tried, it may very well be found that together they work better than either alone.

I can understand why PSTI didn't start with pneumonia, though clearly their patents recognize it's possibilities. I believe the cost of a pneumonia trial would be extremely expensive as at least prior to coronavirus, most would recover. While it still kills many, I believe they're a tiny percentage of all who get it. With coronavirus, the death rate is far greater, especially for patients sick enough to require ventilators.

I'd like to see essentially two different trials, one with patients already on ventilators, the other on people thought to be perhaps a day or two away from needing a ventilator. Let's see if most on ventilators survive, something they're not doing now, and if those pre-ventilator improve without ever requiring the ventilator. If both of these prove out, the next step would be to try the drug on newly diagnosed pneumonia, and see if it prevents the need for hospitalization.

I've had pneumonia a few times in my life, but prior to leukemia it didn't require hospitalization. Post stem cells I was hospitalized, probably more because of a weakened immune system than the severity of the infection. I suspect that if PLX-PAD did the job, even for me the hospital might be replaced with a few trips to the Doctors office to verify that it was getting better.

In the middle of a pandemic, I believe that trials, or compassionate use should be tried with anything that both Doctors and patients, or the families, agree to try. I think that it's Doctors, or other scientists who should decide what the best candidates to try our, not politicians pushing something suggested to them. The more you try, the more the top candidates rise to the top. I believe we'll be up on top, Athersys may be too, I believe in giving Doctors many tools in their toolkit so they can choose what works best for their patients.

Gary