Great post BB, totally agree with you, you laid it out perfectly. NWBO doesn’t take “several months” to make autologous tumor lysate. Once the tumor arrives at Advent, lysate prep can be done in as little as four to seven days, exactly like you said. That timeline is realistic given their GMP infrastructure and experience handling individualized cell therapy.
On Mill Creek, their approach may look different on the surface, using in vitro-expanded tumor cell lines to generate an antigen library, but the downstream process still appears to involve dendritic cells, patient matching, and antigen presentation. So yes, there’s definitely conceptual overlap.
That said, this isn’t unusual. Trials like these, especially in academic settings, are often built on in-licensed platforms or shared technology foundations. In fact, many are intentionally structured to evaluate specific components of an existing system under new conditions or to generate complementary data. So this is not a threat to NWBO’s IP, it’s likely a strategic parallel effort, not a competing one.
What people often miss is that academic trials are designed to test ideas, not commercialize them, and they frequently rely on partnerships or existing tech to do so. If any part of their process relies on DC manufacturing or antigen presentation pathways that overlap with NWBO’s patents, it’s entirely possible that it’s under formal licensing or with NWBO’s knowledge.
And fully agree with your point about manufacturing. NWBO’s ability to produce GMP-grade autologous dendritic cells at scale, with full regulatory compliance, is a serious advantage and still unmatched in most of these adjacent programs.
Appreciate your insight, I just wanted to add that in this case, it’s a complementary academic effort, not a commercial IP threat. You’re spot on.
Bullish