t may be some time in coming for NKTR to realize its potential, but its science is right in my wheelhouse
Please don’t take this personally, but I thought you were a radiologist? But more to the point is that some of your claims appear to be incredibly naive about IO.
NKTR-214 is the only agent that increases T-cell populations directly, nearly 30 fold
This statement is patently false. NKTR has never demonstrated a 30-fold increase in cytotoxic cells with specificity towards the tumor. Furthermore, they provide no comparison to Opdivo alone. It is fair to say that Opdivo plus 214 results in a 30-fold expansion, but that 214 does this alone is entirely unsubstantiated. Relative increases are nice, but can be deceiving without data about absolute changes, and what the cells are reactive to.
AIDS patients have very few T-cells and develop a host of cancers
This is a blend of something that is false followed by a non-sequitur. People with HIV disease have decreases in CD4 positive cells, but both relative and absolute increases in cytotoxic CD8 T cells. If an increase in cytotoxic T cells could alone protect one from cancer, HIV patients would be expected to have a lower incidence of cancers.They don’t.
when I turn 60, I want two things: a CT scan or my coronary arteries and a 6 month dose of NKTR-214 to get my immune system to kill the cancers I don’t know I even have yet.
Cardiology is admittedly out of my scientific wheelhouse, so I will not comment on CT other than to state the most cardiologists I know think it’s value is more related to the wallets of radiologists. However, the idea of 214 use to kill cancers you don’t know about is, to be blunt, absurd. Acceptance of the Opdivo/214 combination mechanism requires checkpoint inhibition along with 214. A six month dose of 214 does nothing without checkpoint inhibition. Are you willing to subject yourself to taking six months worth of Opdivo plus 214 to fight cancers you don’t even know you have? If you are going to argue that 214 can go it alone, then you must accept that no T cells are being held in check. If none are in check, they have probably already cured your cancer! This is the fundamental basis of the concept of checkpoint in cancer.
If you are going to do this when you are 60 you might need to self prescribe and administrate 214, because you won’t find a competent physician who is willing to do something so crazy. It would be malpractice.
Look, I am not posting this to play one-up, but as evidenced by the number of recs you get on these NKTR posts there are a large group of very gullible people on this board who hang on every word of a physician who claims NKTR science is in his wheelhouse. I’m sorry, reading chest x-rays, mammograms and CT scans certainly would be in your wheelhouse, but IO science is not. The fundamental misunderstandings and ridiculous claims made here are not made by IO physicians, scientists, and certainly not by competent tumor immunologists.
Buyer beware
Cosmid