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Ready4bluesky

02/06/16 10:05 AM

#52900 RE: OutsideLane #52899

Yes, but there have been many warnings about this trial using PFS vs. OS for the primary end point and complicated further by the unusable secondary endpoint (because of confounding issues). All valid concerns which were quickly dismissed by the majority of this board.

At least this trial will be a useful reminder for future companies/trials that the gold standard has been and continues to be OS for trial design. Also an important lesson for investors new to biotech (like myself) how one little flaw in trial design can jeopardize the whole mission. Actually jeopardize the entire company for those with a limited pipeline.

I feel like everything is slowly coming into focus and for that I am grateful. Not the result I was hoping for, but final resolution will make it possible to move on to other opportunities.
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doingmybest

02/06/16 10:18 AM

#52901 RE: OutsideLane #52899

No, the OS metric has obviously been compromised within the study due to the ethically correct FDA requirement of a crossover to active treatment. The difficulties with cancer trials continue, between good ethics toward current trial patients and good responsibility ethics to other and future patients who need better therapies to combat such awful diseases with GBM competing in the top quadrant. The OS data provided by the trial can obviously only be used to compare OS from initially active treated patients in the study to SOC data outside of the study, which I think will be accepted by the agency in a case like this if it comes to that. I do not think the agency will allow the apparent benefits of a therapy like this to be kept away from patients for years more when science and innovative study construct can be utilized to resolve this set of constraints. There are public protective mechanisms like market monitoring, additional focused scientific studies, and, conditional approval to protect the public, made much simpler when safety is not a major consideration. Would anyone want to be the subject of study at FDA when in the future facts reveal years were lost due to an FDA imposed study constraint when good science, judgment and innovative tools could have been used. Realizing the constraints that do exist, it is my opinion this is manageable by FDA and the agency has the expertise and where-with-all to make it happen.