expected announcment 14th, page-57

Hi Kbear1 ... I think we would make a great ying and yang team.

I didn’t read the announcement as I was on fly but it doesn’t really change much.

Raw OS numbers will be presented and ML will make a further announcement. Those numbers will appear to be encouraging or not but difficult to decipher because of the differing exposures and if not broken down by which CR group even more impossible.

In the abstract the methods section identifies four end-points (PFS, OS, safety, immune monitoring) and so a story about what happened to each of those four things should be in the results. Three are reported - and OS needed either the raw numbers or at least a sentence to explain why not. As I said if you assume every omission from results presentations is always negative you will be right 99% of the time – but we will have to wait and see.

Notice the spin between the abstract and announcement where Can-003 now apparently demonstrates “clinically meaningful benefit” Well who says? A study that demonstrates clinically meaningful benefit doesn’t need any further investigation at all. Just submit it to the FDA and if it is true it will be approved. That phrase is not used in the abstract because it would not pass through the review process.

The conclusion from Gray that the Can-003 signal warrants further investigation is exactly right … and that’s what’s happening in Can-004b. The only thing that can make anything more compelling here is OS data because that is the primary outcome for Can-004b.

For today it probably all boils down to whether you think the “news” was leaked in late trading on PBMD which seemed to enjoy a little rise to close at 1.25. At 0.053 this translates to 1.48 making us about 18% over odds. So who plays catch up to who?

Which leads to a bizarre conversation about whether news that is “non-news”, but is thought by the ASX to be “news” but it can’t be because the company would in breach of the law, has or hasn’t been leaked into the US market before the abstract was officially released, by the company in a news wire announcement that according to ASCO it shouldn’t do but according to the ASX or SEC it should have done ages ago.

All a great little case illustration of the complexities around the market – company – science interface imo.

All the best Southoz