From todays AFR, page-9

I get what you are saying Rayda, and I held the same view as you regarding the primary end point being the main objective in a clinical trial.

What I learned from the SIRFLOX trial is that like all professions and industries, the medical one is also highly influenced by politics, compromises, commercial pressures etc ... I think many people place too much faith in the purity of the industry due to it concerning our health (I certainly did).

My very layman's understanding of the SIRFLOX trial is that Sirtex had to agree to an inappropriate primary end point in order to obtain enough support to conduct the trial in a reasonable timeframe and to meet statistical requirements. I suspect that Sirtex would have preferred to specify a liver-only end point measurement if it were able.

So what could Gilman have done? He could have announced that he was confident the primary end-point was unachievable but that investors should ignore this and focus on the secondary end-point. Would this have been an acceptable formal position to have taken with those conducting the trials? Would the shareprice have halved on the day such an announcement was made? I suspect it may well have as the market responded immediately to a "CEO Believes Primary End-Point Unachievable" announcement, only to consider the true implications of the announcement in the fullness of time. (Ie, basically what happened anyway ...).

Great people only lost money last March if they panicked.

I'm sticking with my preference for a CEO that tells the truth, and costs me money due to my own ignorance, rather than those that lie and cost me money due to my misplaced trust ...

Always good to hear counter-arguments. Good luck with your investment.