Definitely guarded optimism from me Owl vs Fox, at least till...

Definitely guarded optimism from me Owl vs Fox, at least till further phase 1 results.

Regarding Vaxinia, because it is still a phase 1 trial, I am very keen to see the safety and side effect results, and to a lesser extent, any additional efficacy signals, as the dose is escalated. Since I'm open to the idea that higher doses may result in much better patient outcomes, I'm also open to the possibility that higher doses may result in negative patient outcomes.

Key questions for me:
- Will the flu symptoms get worse as the dose escalates? What can an already sick patient tolerate?
- Will other side effects present themselves as the dose escalates?

We have some clues from pre-phase 1 testing, both the NCI-60 cell panel tests and the animal tests (neither of which the FDA care about). As Dr. Fong stated, CF33 killed all cancers in the NCI-60 cell panel, plus another 30 cancer cell lines. As good as the panel test results are, these tests are efficacy tests of in-vitro, two dimensional cell line structures only. They tell us little about side effects, and nothing about whether CF33 is effective at killing cancer cells in a 3D cell structure. Added to that, good results in an NCI-60 cell panel don't always translate to good results in an animal trials.

So, while CF33 had excellent results at this stage, I took them with a grain of salt. It was the next stage, animal tests, where things got better. As Dr. Fong pointed out about the animal test results, and a big positive flag for me, was the high therapeutic index - i.e. they started to see a therapeutic effect, at a lower dose, way before a toxic effect, at higher doses, was seen.

Since then we have had good early phase 1 results. As the dose escalates I'm hopeful of even better phase 1 results. Should they eventuate, that will be the cue for me to invest a little more (I'm not saying this is the right time, I'm saying this is the right time for my risk profile).

Regarding the possibility of a deal with BP, I have no background in pharma deal making, so can't make an educated comment of how he should approach it. What I do know is that BP have deep pockets, but their funds are not infinite, and there are literally hundreds of companies with an eye on those funds. I hope Hopper and Leslie are good enough to piggy back off IMU's, hopefully great phase 1 results, to a meaningful deal with BP.