Absolutely
@dachopperThere is not a snowflake's chance in hell that Novartis AG's C-suite personnel 'winged it' with an emoji-laden WhatsApp post to CEO Itescu to communicate Novartis' decision & intent.
There is not a snowflake's chance in hell that Novartis AG's attorneys did not draft the formal letter on Novartis' letterhead referencing termination rights under the Licence & Collaboration Agreement with MSB. Why? Because Novartis AG wants to ensure that its ongoing obligations to MSB are actually terminated without further cost or liability on its part to MSB, so far as that's possible.
There is not a snowflake's chance in hell that Novartis AG's attorneys did not cite with absolute clarity and precision those provisions of the 2020 Licence & Collaboration Agreement which authorise and enable Novartis AG to terminate the contract. There would be no ambiguity and there would be no uncertainty at all. Why? Because Novartis has been burned by sloppy drafting in the past, including in its current Licence and Collaboration Agreement with Incyte.
Read the judgement
here. It's instructive of the true relationship between these "partners" operating under a Licence & Collaboration Agreement, one of which says it's our BFF and the other of whom just happens to be our number #1 enemy.
I've expressed my views previously on some of the key factors which IMO have weighed against a good Novartis-MSB partnership all along. Sure there are imponderables, like the extent to which the ongoing contract relations between Novartis and Incyte are determined by corporate greed on a truly global scale. But, given the future career need for Vas to perform as CEO after his terrible previous picks, & given the increasing $$$ contribution ruxolitinib sales ex-USA & Incyte royalties from intra-USA sales are making to Novartis' bottom line, I can't take this as a seriously difficult issue to understand or who it favours.
Then there are other, IMO more important, scientific factors weighing against a relationship between MSB and Novartis' given its drug ruxolitinib. I think HC posters may have missed some of these. For example, there is this research from Jacques Galipeau et al (link
here). I was stunned to read a research article headed "
Ruxolitinib Inhibits IFNγ Licensing of Human Bone Marrow Derived Mesenchymal Stromal Cells " and then see that it has received almost no citations or follow up. I asked myself why Galipeau, a world-reknowned expert in cellular therapies, would engage in such a focussed review of the effect of a specific drug - & a JAK inhibitor at that - on a particular cell-type i.e. BM-derived MSCs. And then it started to click - if ruxolitinib can interfere with remestemcel-l's mode of action, then surely it can't be recommended by medical practitioners for use prior to treatment with remestemcel-l. And then I thought, how much of a war are we in? And then I thought have we got the right generals & ammunition? After churning through all this over and over, I still think we've got the best army for this fight, but have no doubts, this invasion of the US by remestemcel-l is shaping up like Normandy, IMO.
I'm backing our team. Interested in others thoughts. Cheers.