Looking Forward on March 25

Details. What immunology-related details will be provided next week by the company? It will be interesting to see if Moffitt's poster identifies (and discusses) the specific immune response.

Game changer. Some of you may recall that Rodman & Renshaw's Elemer Piros said, paraphrasing, around the time of ASCO 2010, that elucidating the remote bystander effect in visceral metastases could be a "game changer" for the company. At the time, in presenting some of the MM Phase 2 trial results, the principal investigators noted a correlation between the visceral response and the response of injected lesions similar to that observed with cutaneous bystander lesions, and a pattern consistent with a common immunologic mechanism. Fast forward 20 months, Moffitt's published abstract, to use Craig's word from Friday's PR, independently validates a systemic effect for PV-10. Does Piros still consider this a game changer? It will be interesting to see if Piros issues a substantive equity research update on this topic next week.

Comments. I was struck by Craig's quoted (i.e., prepared) comments in Friday's PR: "The data from this independent study validates our belief that PV-10 induces systemic effects similar to those observed with immunotherapy or a vaccine. However, in contrast to conventional immunotherapies or vaccines, PV-10 also leads to a readily apparent and well-documented, rapid destruction of the treated lesions, which appears to afford a unique combination of reduced tumor burden and in situ immune stimulation against remaining tumor tissue." There have been several recent journal and news articles on immunotherapies and vaccines, such as this one and this one. So, his efforts to distinguish PV-10 from conventional immunotherapies and vaccines (as a chemoablative immunotherapeutic) are notable. It will be interesting to see the theme(s) of his Maxim Group conference presentation on Monday.

News cycle. Speaking of news articles, how much, if any, press and awareness can management gin up from SSO? It will be interesting to see if the news cycle can bring immunology-related coverage about PV-10.