Replies to post #169595 on Biotech Values

[biomaven0]

Tefferi is obviously a very smart doctor, but I think he went out on a limb criticizing Jakafi - he pretty much said it wouldn't show any survival benefit and then had to backtrack a little when it did. But he still basically considers Jakafi to be virtually useless, and continues to say so.

I have no horse in the GERN race - just pointing out that Tefferi seems to me to be a bit unbalanced in this area.

Peter

[nuere]

GERN
This is not rocket science.. I would assume it will take some time for the disease modifying activity of Imetelstat to actually show effect on spleen size. If the bone marrow heals, there is no need for blood production in the spleen and it will go back to its normal function and form.

From yesterday CC

Matthew J. Lowe - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division
It's actually Matthew Lowe in for Cory today. I guess just wondering if you could comment, from a more theoretical standpoint, that -- I mean, is it possible that symptom improvement with the drug could lag the bone marrow and blood effects and maybe presented at a later point in time? Do you see that as something which is feasible?

John A. Scarlett - Chief Executive Officer, President and Director
Well, from a theoretical perspective, as you quite rightly pointed out, not commenting on any data contained within the abstract. The -- I think that if you see -- look, the goal is obviously having meaningful disease modification, and as far as we know, the symptoms are associated with cytokines that come from, presumably, from the underlying malignant progenitor cell neoplasm. So theoretically, one should expect, I would think, to see changes in all of these different criteria that make up the response criteria, the IWG response criteria, at some point. The exact nature of how long it takes and so forth may be both individualized, and also, I don't think that we can make any further comments about that without breaking the embargo. But I would just simply say that, theoretically, one should expect to see things. If you get the underlying neoplasm headed in the right direction, I would expect most of these criteria to head in the right direction.