no risk from Novartis IMO

I have given the Novartis scandal some thought and don’t see how it affects PAA at all.. I don’t think it is relevant to the origination of PPL-1 nor any subsequent analogues of it.

Firstly, the source of the first PPL-1 compound:

The Zolvix sheep drench by Novartis is quite likely the inspiration for product synthesized for development of PAA’s PPL-1... It was launched in 2009 in New Zealand and was developed by Massey University, once again in New Zealand, more specifically by Bill Pomroy, Professor of Veterinary Parasitology. Not the Japanese gentlemen formerly employed by Novartis.

This product has been administered to what must be millions of sheep and is still being marketed post scandal. To me this implies that no side effects have gone unreported.

Not to mention that New Zealand, although looking a bit like Japan, is miles away and has nothing to do with it. I don’t even think they eat lamb in Japan, so what they would be doing trying to de-worm sheep is beyond me (I’m assuming they import all their wool!)

Secondly, the source of the new analogues of PPL-1:

It appears that the Japanese research partner has likely used PAA’s IP in synthesizing the new analogues of PPL-1 (not the Novartis version, but I am happy to be corrected here). So there is no need to go through the gorilla of Novartis. ‘IP’ is the issue here.

It makes sense here that PAA would avoid Novartis like the plague. Note that PAA intends to jointly lodge the patent applications in March 2015 ‘subject to other prevailing IP at the time’. I don’t believe that they would be giving Novartis any IP to play around with until patents have been well and truly lodged. Nor would they give them any IP subsequently.. the ensuing battle over who owns what would bankrupt PAA IMO.

So essentially, PAA are dealing with a different company altogether. If I had to bet, I would say Diatranze Otzuka, but that is just a whopping guess given their involvement with LCT in New Zealand of all places.

Most importantly, the very fact that PAA has done its own research into the safety of its own analogues of PPL-1 means that any adverse side effects relating to a Novartis product is not relevant either.

Whichever way you cut the pie, what Novartis employees have been getting up to in Japan does not matter.

DYOR&GLTA