when not if for pab now, page-11

Todays announcement was all spin, the abstract is borderline misleading and poor science.

Reading the paper the survival difference is at least as likely to come from baseline differences in populations (the group that didn't receive PAT-SC1 had much worse disease at baseline and higher residual disease burden after surgery). Other confounders include the affect of potential developments in other aspects of care between the pre 1997 and post 1997 groups. These factors are far more likely to explain survival difference than one 20mg dose of PAT-SC1

A true randomised controlled trial with this result would be massive, this study is of a weak design, it's an unblinded, unrandomised, historical comparison cohorts with poorly matched groups. The paper was released electronically online on January 10th, why the delay on release to the ASX if so important?

I'm a holder and see good things coming but this isn't particularly meaningful, it might spruik the attention of another company to launch an SC1 based trial, and if I had gastric cancer I'd be keen for a punt, but a huge amount more research is needed before it starts getting licences from the FDA.

I know this isn't what people want to hear and I expect howls of derision, but I'm a consultant physician and reading and critiquing these papers is what I do. I don't know how the market will respond overall but people who know their science will just shrug when they read the paper properly. That said, if it gets the shortfall placed and we can get on with the real trials its a good thing.