Replies to post #128197 on Biotech Values

[pharmaclown35]

interesting points on Celldex. Do you think they'll ever re-partner?

[jq1234]

Well, this is the most commonly used trick in comparing data from different clinical trials: different patient population. Some do it deliberately, some do it due to ignorance, and some by honest mistake.

[biomaven0]

It sounds like the patient population targeted by the CLDX GBM vaccine (EGFRvIII) is much harder to treat than the patient population targeted by the IMUC GBM vaccine so it would make sense that the IMUC numbers might look better on the surface.

In my view it may be hard to tell anything much in either case. If I recall correctly (it's been a while) both CLDX and IMUC have quite a long period post-surgery where they do the analysis and prepare their vaccine. It was unclear to me how they counted patients that died in that period (or deteriorated enough so that they were never treated). In a randomized trial those patients would of course be part of the drug group, but in a comparison with historical controls they might not have been so fastidious.

Peter