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Biotech / Medical : XOMA. Bull or Bear? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edscharp who wrote (9032)	3/9/1999 3:49:00 PM
From: Webhead	Respond to of 17367

You are responding to this message from Edward Schnaper on Mar 9 1999 2:43PM EST . . . "Lo & behold, the DSMB report comes in and today some of our thread participants have become decidedly combative and testy. Is this thread normally like this? May I reasonably conclude that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing? Might this be the answer as to why DSMB releases as little data as possible?" ---------- Ha! You are soooo right. Many SI threads follow this same pattern and it is understandable given the dribs and drabs of information that comes our way. Anyone and everyone feels free to speculate about any shred of info such that, once repeated by enough people, it seems to actually be TRUE. We really don't know what criteria the DSMB are using and can only be disapointed that the trial keeps going on and on. Many of us were excited by the PII results and were not prepared for the length of time the PIII is taking. BTW, the above statement isn't directed at anyone in particular and in all humility I have also been guilty of overanalysis and a certain suspension of disbelief best reserved for the movies. Groupthink is extremely dangerous... Ed

To: Edscharp who wrote (9032)	3/9/1999 9:02:00 PM
From: aknahow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 17367

Good question, and a fair one. It's not the statistics nor the effectiveness. It's the time to conclusion of the trial. If the target is 35 and it has not yet been reached with 370 accruals, this means the total mortality rate is under 9%. If the target is 50 we will be looking at less than 13%. Then going back to the original 200 expected accruals one can play with what sort of overall mortality they were expecting. I believe it would help me know if we are months away or weeks away from trial termination. But only termination, not efficiency. Received private e-mail from EM. Reason for DSMB and XOMA keeping target secret was specifically to keep this board from getting testy.<g> Actually the testiness is the result of a virus one gets from reading Yahoo post.