My response to Cheng Ho on SA board
Posted: Tue May 05, 2020 10:35 pm
Bill really, first off, as to Dr. T's Italy comments, I heard them too. It was about maybe 4 years ago and in the wake of the great Geron/Dr. T/FDA rupture. I wondered after the NEJM article how it must feel to Dr. T to be the first clinician in the world to demonstrate complete remission and bone marrow normalization in MF. Pretty pretty good, I would think. But then the study steerage was taken from him, no need to review the history, its well known to many here. Here he is with an article showing a first ever clinical finding with bone marrow resolution, symptom improvement, evidence for disease modification, at least 3 mo of transfusion independence in some, spleen shrinkage in some, (yes but by palpation) etc and the definitive study to follow was shut down, how did he feel? Pretty pretty bad. His comment has to reflect that, it could be as simple as sour grapes but also reflected that Imet was not the perfect drug. Its not, but its pretty pretty good. Four years later those comments are probably not even relevant in light of a new study, MOS improvements, new bone marrow and molecular end points etc. So Bill, let it go. Dr. T's Italy comments are history and no longer relevant in the post Janssen era. As to the phase I data, so what. There were what, 2 AML patients? And it was basically all comers no matter what level of disease they had. There could be no meaningful conclusions and a different study design was called for and performed by Janssen. Your criticisms were valid four years ago. Its time professor to get back in the DeLorean and "emerge" into the present. Stay Healthy, bp