I just talked to my personal hematologist. (He is friends with Tefferi.) He says that spleen size is "purely palliative" and overrated as an endpoint. He says Imetelstat will provide OS benefit, which Jakafi doesn't do.
This is wrong on two counts:
1) Morally - "purely (dramatically) palliative" as if that were a negative?! Really? (Sure, it would be great if it were palliative and close to addressing root cause of the disease - but palliative is a good thing. Especially as much as Jakafi does.)
2) Factually - Jakafi does provide an impressive OS benefit. It may not be in the label, but at least one of the trials shows a substantial OS benefit.
An again I will say I think the imetelstat data is cool. But not a slam dunk for easy path forward.