Steve, it's going to be tough to get a standing-room-only space at Butts' presentation.
Not one immunologist wants another provenge, where a minor benefit can't be backed by lab evidence that patients ever "saw" antigen. If he walks in with immune correlates (again, can't wait to see the results of the "correlates" trial which matures in June) and long-term survivor data that favors L-BLP25, then we're gold.
A next step would be to look at frequencies of CD4+PD-1+, CD4+CTLA4+, CD8+ and CD25+ T cell populations in vaccine recipients, before and after immunization, with an eye to pairing the vaccine with immune checkpoint inhibition.
This is either going to be monstrous, or it's going to look like pfffffbbbbbbt-face-plant "adjuvant effect". If it looks like the latter, everyone will see burn and future, marginal trials.
I'm quite pleased with the abstract, and feel good about rolling dice.
Thanks for your comments and thoughts. Good luck!
Rick |