Since David Crossen is apparently, from what I've read, a PhD with years of experience in the field and has been the CEO of his own biotech firm, and Ascensio is just a short seller, one would have to be very cautious about believing Ascensio. He is sounding desperate in this release, which is odd as he has been making money driving the price of this stock down.
He also distorts things in subtle ways by not telling the whole truth. For instance he emphasizes that there is no "statistically significant difference" in bleeding between the two. That was because of the small group size which was all the FDA requested for rapid approval.
However, EVERY VARIABLE related to bleeding, blood loss, clotting etc was in the same direction, in the favor of Hextend. For example, the 56 Hespan patients suffered 12 adverse events relating to clotting while the 59 Hextend patients suffered 2 such events. It is clear that a larger group size would quickly give statistical significance. If you were the doctor, which would you use? If you used Hespan and the patient bled and had to spend 3 extra days in the hospital at a cost of $4000, how would you justify it? Would you say that you were trying to save $40 on the cost of the solution? How do you think that would go over with the patient and his family, with the HMO that has to pay the extra hospital bill, with the hospital usage committees, etc? |
