good find boilerand although the sufferers have to wait longer...

good find boiler
and although the sufferers have to wait longer for that wonder drug that will help them (that's the sad part), it does bode very well for Prima's prospects and its shareholders.

Don't know if anyone saw this article yesterday ...

http://industry.bnet.com/pharma/10003090/merck-kgaa-on-cancer-vaccines-were-not-crazy-just-convinced/

Interesting. At first it raised concern in mind about it being competition for Prima particularly since Stimuvax targets the MUC1 protein andthe company (Merck) seems to be trying to race ahead with its programme but by switching to trials in breast cancer despite the data which seems to be in question from their phase II results.

Fortunately and very timely I got a call from Martin Rogers yesterday while at work, which is about the third unexpected call I had from him in as many weeks. As usual this was appreciated and he explained that he likes to get back to his shareholders and take time proactively with them.

I raised the topic about the above article to understand if this is direct competition. His answer was along the lines of that competition is not the word he'd use. They have a drug that has interesting results but it works quite differently and is not today ready or trialed for ovarian cancer. For them to be up against Prima, they would have to start trials for ovarian cancer. There are different arrangements that can be agreed for trials where sometimes they may overlap (phaseI/II/III) that's what I understood, but they are far behind a vaccine cancer drug for OC compared to Prima.

More importantly, is this. Martin said that CVac is patented as an ex vivo administered drug, blood taken out of patient, treated and feed back to the patient reprogrammed. This is the same method used by DENDREON. I forget the exact words he used, but he emphasized that the patents focus around a dual process of mannan fusion relating to MUC1. It's the combination of MUC1 and mannan fusion that brings the extremely effective result in the case of CVac. This is not something that Merck are doing or will even be able to do due to the different methods used between the two approaches (remember PRR's method is patent protected).

Worth noting that I don't consider myself anyone special just because I'm fortunate enough to have had several calls from MR. On the other hand it's admirable that he does make the effort as has been said before. Any of us can pick up the phone and talk to him. He's very easy to chat with and is patient in style I feel. I didn't really have a set of question at the ready (because he called unexpectedly).

However, I am going to try to observe points raised by others (mainly here on HC) so that where concerns do get raised or things need clarification, then I will try to remember to put these to him assuming he calls again.Remember we can all pick up the phone. He's quite amenable.

Lastly, I recall asking him about expected time frame for IND approval. He indicated Q4, so I wouldn't hold your breath for an ANN in the next couple of weeks.

I'm no longer concerned about lack of information for two reasons. The recent announcement is significant (Pfizer global head of US operations and trials) IMO and given that he has called me several times helps, even if we would all (including me) like more announcements.

planet