Not sure about that. Wouldn't the clinical investigators that are on ariad's medical advisory board be privy to all of the clinical data as well as the safety reports? I thought that was the standard program.
Even so, one would expect that the top clinical investigators, especially the Drukers, Corteses, etc. would have more treatment experience than any other physician whether private, institutional or at the FDA. It would only make sense, as there aren't that many CML patients to begin with compared to diabetes, MS, breast cancer, etc. Any "expert" working for the FDA on this would pale in comparison to the ones backing this drug publicly.
This is an orphan drug for a rare disease, let's keep that in mind