NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[MI Dendream]

Hope, I completely sympathize with this perspective and empathize as well since I have a friend currently living with GBM. For this dilemma, I point the finger at our health insurance industry. If NWBO were to produce vaccine for the RTT patient at cost of manufacturing plus distribution at R&D manufacturing costs. That is cost prohibitive to the patient and a wash for NWBO. But this isn’t he case, in order for NWBO to receive supply for that vaccine, the patient must have a successful resection, properly handled and a lymphopheresis to obtain Dendritic cells. This procedure costs approximately $2500, billed higher plus administration services and associated fees.

Commercial insurance will not pay for these additional services, not to mention the minor delivery charges on the back end. NWBO would need to foot this bill, or the institution, which in most cases means NWBO. Demand 100 patients is $500,000 we don’t have to be charitable with on top of free drug or drug at cost. An Early Access program takes infrastructure that we do not currently have. This too costs money to build and maintain. The costs of manufacturing are primarily due to Cognate/CRL so that is not free drug to NWBO it is highly priced drug. That is $15M we don’t have. A facility in operation for a few costs much more than one in operation for many. Although 100 is an underestimation of demand, it is not full demand by any stretch.

If you have $30-50M lying around to donate to the cause...

What every cancer patient, not just those with GBM need is for DCVAX to be approved in the US and adopted as SOC. This will lead to bigger and better things. A partially accepted often challenged regimen is not in anyone’s best interest in the short, mid or long term.