Oncolytic viruses.... concept sounds great, if you're not an immunologist. When Onyx said that they were going to get around immunogenicity by pegylation, in a joint exercise with Valentis? I almost barfed laughing. And some geniuses got all the way to ex-vivo absorption. Yeah, that's gonna work.
So, how is this lab experiment going to translate to patient benefit?
It's been THIRTY YEARS. For thirty years, investigators have injected agents into tumors that -- one mechanism or another -- induced apoptosis or active cell killing and made them go *poof*. Not once has it translated to patient benefit, if you're talking a sufficiently large patient sample to compare with adequate controls.
>> VP Product Development: Dr. Matt Coffey <<
Type "Coffey MC" into the search field and hit "go".....
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Not one publication (PubMed) where Dr. Lee was not senior author. You referred to Dr. Coffey's thesis. Most biotechs, when they want respect, hire an established professional with biologics experience to run shop. But Dr. Lee's grad student?
Closed shop.
We all, of course, WISH that the company has great success. I'd love to eat crow. With viral vectors of any sort and for cancer therapy??..... hasn't happened yet.
From the view of an immunologist, the hurdles to using an oncolytic virus are enormous (insurmountable, to this immunologist), and lessons learned from the effort just guide small molecule programs. Good luck. |
