NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

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That claim doesn’t hold up, either factually or scientifically.

Dr. Paul Mulholland wasn’t blacklisted. He was a co-author on the DCVax-L Phase 3 trial published in JAMA Oncology alongside Dr. Linda Liau and helped validate the therapy. Now he’s leading a separate immunotherapy trial using ipilimumab in glioblastoma. And while DCVax-L was not part of that trial, it doesn’t signal competition. It clarifies how a specific mechanism Bosch described functions on its own.

In his NYAS 2025 presentation, Dr. Marnix Bosch introduced a modular approach to enhancing dendritic cell therapy using defined immune boosters. These included:

• TLR agonists labeled A B and C1
• Biological response modifiers labeled I1
• Antiviral activators labeled V1
• Danger signals labeled D1

Each class enhances a different immune function, from local cytokine production to systemic T cell polarization and migration. The purpose isn’t just amplification. It’s precision tuning of immune responses to increase both response depth and patient coverage.

Ipilimumab fits this model. It blocks CTLA4, a checkpoint that inhibits early T cell activation during priming. It acts not on the dendritic cells themselves but on the immune cascade they trigger. Bosch categorized this as a Class B booster. It is indirect but powerful, and it operates exactly where DCVax-L initiates its effect, in the lymph nodes, where dendritic cells present antigens and shape the T cell repertoire.

Mulholland’s WinGlio trial did not include DCVax. Instead it tested ipilimumab as a pre-treatment prior to standard therapy. The result was historic. One patient, Ben Trotman, has remained tumor free for over two years with no follow-up resection. His case represents the first known complete response in glioblastoma using immune checkpoint blockade alone .

That outcome doesn’t diminish DCVax. It isolates and confirms the value of one of its most promising boosters. It proves Bosch’s framework has real-world traction, even when deployed as a single-agent strategy.

And that’s just the clinical layer.

Dame Siobhain McDonagh, who helped raise over £1 million for WinGlio, also pushed through SI 2025 number 87, the new law allowing per-patient cell therapies to be labeled and delivered under UK Specials. DCVax-L is the only therapy that meets every requirement of that law. Autologous. Post-GMP. Delivered back to the same patient. Used immediately.

So what does this all mean?

Liau built the antigen engine. Mulholland demonstrated that CTLA4 blockade supercharges the immune response. Bosch tied it together into a unified booster model. McDonagh made it legal to deploy.

Mulholland didn’t walk away from DCVax. He just helped prove how to make it stronger. And now that ipilimumab has shown what it can do alone, Bristol Myers Squibb has every incentive to partner, because their drug just validated a key part of an immune platform they don’t own.