NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[skitahoe]

Iron Mike,

It's all just supposition that any agreement has even been discussed between Merck or anyone else and NWBO. It's very possible with Merck, in that they had an employee working with NWBO, but nothing is certain. Whatever was said or done was done under confidentiality agreements and even if all terms have been completely agreed to nothing would ever be said until the triggering events occurred. It could be far more than just achieving a certain stock price, things like submissions or approvals from the regulators could be part of what needs to be done as well.

As an IMGN investor I'm aware of a partnership they made many years ago that was delayed for well over a year when a refrigerator failed and all the product intended to be used in a Phase 1 trial was lost. IMGN originally contracted for it to be made, but when their contractors failed to do it, they finally did it themselves utilizing specific oriental mice to produce the MAB used in the conjugate drug. Ultimately the drug failed in Phase 1/2 trials. Drugs fail, it's a fact of life, but in the case of DCVax-L I believe it's quite clear that NWBO has succeeded based on the data we've seen to date. I believe that the full data will be substantially better than what we've seen as what we've seen hasn't matched what was said about the Top 100 patients in the trials.

Gary