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Biotech / Medical : CLTR COULTER PHARMACEUTICAL -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gordon James who wrote (417)	12/3/1999 2:23:00 PM
From: RWReeves	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 666

Gordon, you make very good points. There is a part of me that says "This is great-you can do dosimetry to titrate the precise dose and check for any non-specific reactivity so you don't accidentally injure any vital organs". But that's what I'd say of the technology in an academic setting. In a real market setting however, I'd have to consider economics, and the amount of training and supervision needed to do this work, the review of each patient's data (probably) by a radiologist in conjunction with a hem-onc and now it gets to be pretty cumbersome and not real attractive to HMO's unless it has really significant benefits over alternative therapies. On this basis, I'd say more conventionally administered and monitored therapies could have the edge. WBI, yeah I have to be careful here, people have got their shorts in a knot over this. It was based an offhand remark by a very astute MD PhD hem onc that I know and I think it was meant as at least partially tongue-in-cheek, which is the way I took it. There may have been others who said essentially the same thing. I think in all seriousness the underlying point is that going to Gamma for radio-immunotherapy is a pretty heavy duty approch. You are also administering (as I understand it and I'm just an investor here, not a radiologist) a whopping gamma dose to healthy tissues compared to beta. Now we can all agree this is a very serious disease and deserves to be treated with the greatest ratio of efficacy to safety imaginable. I think Bex will probably get approved, and will hold out new hope for many patients who are desperately ill. But you can see the point about gamma and WBI dose, i.e. given alternative therapies which would employ lesser means to destroy the cancerous cells that I'd worry about Bex from this perspective. There are several other treatments in various stages of development, which may challenge the Bex ratio of efficacy/safety. 'nuff said. Disclosures: I've been long on CLTR several times, made a little, lost a little. I will probably buy some at these prices pre-FDA. So disclosure wise; never short, hedged or straddled, not trading on or hoping for downward volatility. Oh, I also worked in Marketing for many years so if I say naughty things about Marketing, it's in good company. RWR