Thank you,
@fourdollars. Finally someone who has mentioned that there is no discernible difference between the data presented in the
ASX announcement on 23 November 2020 and this
conference presentation. I suspected this would be the case in another post. The addition of the Kaplan-Meier (KM) survival curves is nice but essentially reports on the same statistics in the November announcement. Yes, the results, methods and conclusions are neatly packaged up into a presentation paper but inherently I cannot see any substantial updates on the overall survival or progression-free survival.
It's very likely that the overall survival data for the additional 9 patients (n=27 increased to n=36) is available but that they chosen not to release it because they'd be reporting more
interim results again. Furthermore, there would be more data on the existing patients' survival probability. Imugene are likely accumulating more data as per their statement to report on final data - "
Final tumour response, correlation of antibodies with tumour response, and final PFS and OS data is expected to read out in 2021". The data is available; my guess is that they're just choosing not to report it because it would be another "interim" update when a more robust and complete data set can be provided later in the year based on the full cohort of patients. Plus, it's only been about 6 months since the recruitment of the additional patients was completed. Median OS is 14.2 months - they would want to see if the inclusion of those 9 additional patients (whether randomised into treatment or control group) substantially influences the HR or OS outcomes. More time has to lapse.
Now there's always the worst case scenario that the updated data set doesn't reflect the same overall survival probability differences between the treatment and control group which they may have wanted to withhold at this stage. There's also another challenge of replicating if not improving the statistical significance, i.e. p value. I think that's very unlikely given that the survival differences are visible between the two groups even in the early months of the survival curves. However, it's always worth considering the risk of less than ideal results being reported. I am not suggesting that the results won't hold up - I am simply being cautious.
Cheers. DYOR.
(20min delay)