Either NKTR did a bad job explaining their results or we’ve just got a lot of bad journalism going on (maybe both).
My vote would be neither. NKTRs slide deck includes early enrollments. If they don’t include these, they would be accused of cherry-picking. Since they did, some (wrongly) interpret this as a lower response rate. The author of the Stat piece isn’t taking sides. He is a veteran journalist in the biotech sector who is reporting the buzz he is getting from people attending ASCO. Like it or not, that is what the buzz is. It will be sorted out in the fullness of time.
and Nektar defended the results, saying tumor responses are expected to get better over time. The patients enrolled later in the study have not been followed long enough, but when they are, the companies expect more tumors to shrink, boosting the response rates.
And their defense is right, IMO. A few months back I suggested that 214 gets no credit for late responders as it is a characteristic of the mechanism of the drug. By the same token, the appearance of a lack of early responders is not a valid criticism because the mechanism predicts it.
Cosmid (no position)