NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[Doktornolittle]

My Wagering Position for What it is Worth:

I was all in... alllllll in. I finally got scared and pulled back. Pulled too far back and lost some ground coming back in.

Novice antics. When you have too much in you become too emotional. I knew that, but did it anyway. When you have to much on the sidelines you become anxious and can buy in high.

In the end I find the correct balance between greed and fear is one testical (or ovary) not two. This is a one testical situation. Not a half, and not two. At least for me.

When I hear people talking about digging money out of their couches to invest further, I worry about them, a little.

Everything I know about Northwest says that not being invested now would be a big mistake. But I don't know everything. Many if not most on this site know much more than me, but they too realize they don't know everything.

Linda Powers bought 6,468,153 shares on 12/12/2012. Certainly everything she knew said it was a good investment at that point in time. That was about a year ago, but there was still more data available to her then than we have now... no? The only thing more that we have is the date when 66 events was reached.

Dr. Linda Liau, M.D., Ph.D, was heavily involved in the development of DCVax-L for GBM, and I believe she was chief of the early trials, and possibly the current phase III trial. She is a very actively practicing neurosurgeon with a Ph.D. in Molecular Neuroscience. She lost her mother to GBM when she was a resident. A life experience like that motivates people in big ways. All those Oscar winners pointing at the sky are for real. Well, I guess I don't know that, but Dr. Linda Liau is for real. I know that.

http://www.cancer.ucla.edu/Index.aspx?page=644&recordid=304

Like many people I changed my life course as the result of a personal loss. For me that might have been a mistake because I switched from a field where I was very strong to one where I was weak. But for Dr. Linda Lau it was only a matter of final specialization. I've only known one M.D., Ph.D.. Dr. Larry Miller at Resonex MRI. He was a phenomenon. Head of the Advanced Projects group (him and a talented tech), he made an enormous number of large contributions to the development of that MRI system. And I don't think either of his parents died for need of an MRI.

NWBO has an outstanding, albeit small crew. They had a much larger crew until finances forced them to trim down. By that time DCVax-L was already developed, and it did not make sense to keep a large crew for the extended journeys ahead of them.

But here they are, at the end of that journey. A few things to grapple with for us, but not the quality and sincerity of NWBO's effort thus far. Not Dr. Lau's efforts. Not Linda Power's efforts.

So what to worry about. One concern often stated... and recently brought back up in that Apology to Adam Anti blog. IMUC failed so why not DCVax-L. The difference is the number of antigens. Is that a big difference? This is not my field. But it's a numbers game, right? It's a microbial war and the numbers must matter. It's a statistical thing. These T-Cells sniff around looking for antigens reported by the Dendritic Cells, and sometimes get fooled by suppressor's. The more antigens, the greater the chance that an antigen is exposed distant from an inhibitor. The PD-L1 inhibitors, for example, are not floating around in the interstitial space. They stick out the side of the cell membrane like the antigens do. And they can't stick out everywhere. More varied antigen targets may not improve the odds for a given programmed T-Cell, but it improves the odds of a security breach for the tumor cell, for some T-Cell targeting the right antigen.

So, I argue that even I can come up with reasonable explanations for why DCVax-L could be far more effective than ICT-107 (IMUC's currently/apparently failed immunotherapy... at least for now). That doesn't mean DCVax-L is better than ICT-107; it just means that the bashers that argue that ICT-107's failure strongly implies DCVax-L's failure are not trying very hard to see any other possibilities.

The other main concern appears to be that there might be a lot of people in this for the run-up to interim review results, and others in it for the early approval possibility, so that the likely recommendation of continue will actually tank the stock.

One nut now. And if that were to come about, I will be putting my other nut on the line because a simple continue is probably all that is needed for a number of other developments to fall into place. It does not benefit me to say this. But hearing the concerns recently posted, I thought I should share these thoughts.

Aside: (So as not to be touting PD-L1 inhibitors, one of the few clinical summaries that I read about such made it sound like surrounding healthy tissue may actually point at the tumors by increasing the amount of PD-L1 they present. Perhaps the surrounding cells feel the heat generated by the excess tumor metabolism, or sense the excess acidity generated... who knows, but it appears that the contrast in PD-L1 expression between the tumor and the surrounding tissue helps clue the immune system as to what is tumor and what is not. So it is unclear that simply wiping out all PD-L1 function would always improve the situation... and further, as Flipper pointed out, there might be side effects... For example; PD-L1 apparently helps healthy tissue protect itself from inflammation after tissue damage. The cleaning crew comes in to eat the spill and kill any pathogens feasting on the spill, and the surrounding healthy tissue raises the PD-L1 flag to distinguish themselves from the carnage. Not to say it shouldn't help... it apparently does often, but it is not a panacea and not without issues.)

Pardon my animorphodizing the individual cells etc, gpb.