It's not an assumption; I'm just stating what should be patently obvious: the trial was not explicitly designed to measure overall survival.
I never claimed that they are different, but I would definitely want to see that information before being confident that the OS signal is "real".
I don't claim to know what PPHM's intentions are and haven't accused them of lying per se. Nonetheless, I have seen some misleading PRs from them in the past, and I wouldn't put it past them to be over-exuberant in their reporting of the results of the 2nd line NSCLC trial. While I am probably more skeptical of PPHM than I would be of other companies, I would afford the same level of scrutiny to these "results" even if they came from another company.
One of the points I've been trying to get across is that we probably won't get a definitive answer on whether bavituximab improves OS for 2nd line NSCLC, even once the full results of this trial become available. For that, we would have to have results from a phase III trial with OS as the primary endpoint - and we're not likely to have those results any time soon.
Of course, the share price could get a nice pop when PPHM announce the full results, but that's a separate issue from what I've raised above.
A partnership deal would be positive, but it does not change the scientific validity of the results. There are certain unknowns that a potential partner will not be able to answer even after completely dissecting the data from the trial. If these unknowns did not exist, there would be no reason to conduct a phase III study - which I maintain will be necessary.
PPHM gave out primary endpoint ORR and secondary endpoint PFS numbers without stating whether they are statistically significant or not. Obviously there are people who are dumb enough to believe they are or don't know the difference. PPHM then artifully shifted the discussion from ORR/PFS to MOS. Whether this is intentionally or not is in the eyes of beholders.
What is it too good to be true? Missing primary and secondary trial endpoints?
Come back after they ACTUALLY get a big pharma partnership.