Welcome cheminvestor. I remember posting with you on Yahoo.
One item that stayed with me since the Barron's article was the comment attributed to a health care worker at an institution involved in the P3 trails. Basically to this effect: no one is living any longer, and we know who gets the xcytrin because the patients' skin turns green (this is true). Barron's can be sloppy, but that sort of journalism if accurate is good work and can be a valuable warning. OTOH, a stat sign 45-day survival benefit might be lost on a rotating nurse but easily apparent in a statistical program.
I don't like companies with a fortress anti-inquiry mentality. Since I first bought it for the breast cancer program, I'm really discouraged by the seeming lack of progress, especially after the company suggested they had a handle on the dose and exposure to take forward.
A last comment. I will check my (old) notes, but it may be that there is some physician judgment in the survival endpoint in that it may be necessary to determine whether the cause of death is from brain mets, other mets, or the primary cancer. Given how sick the P3 patients are, although it may be very possible for a doctor, I have never understood how that decision can be accurate.
I've gone from pcyc being one of my top 4 picks in 1999 to today holding only a modest amount, largely due to the company's choice not to communicate.
Any enterprising MD, though, ought to be able to get an audience with one of the investigators using xcytrin in the many other open label trials. That could produce some very interesting info.
Wilder |
