Northwest Biotehrpeutics: How Does DCVax-L Clinical Data Compare To The CAR-T Therapy Axi-Cel?

An article on Seeking Alpha called Northwest Biotherapeutics: Statistically Satisfying was just published by an author who uses the pseudonym Bohsie. He looks at the unblinded data from the phase 3 trial of DCVax-L and hypothesizes that the data seems highly supportive of the hope that the phase 3 trial of DCVax-L will be statistically significant on the primary endpoint of PFS. The article is balanced, insightful and well-reasoned, but as is always the case, writers from hedge funds have viciously attacked the article. The common thread of their comments seems to be that the trial will fail because the stock price is $0.18. None of the numerous posts attacking Bohsie tried to refute his analysis. They just attacked him personally. This is a standard tactic of hedge fund shills.

Hedge Funds Disparage the Article

Hedge funds have been heavily involved on the long side with KITE and for some time I have thought about comparing the phase 2 results for KITE’s CAR-T therapy Axi-Cel versus phase 1/2 results for DCVax-L. I finally did this in response to one of the hedge fund writers Biotech Hawk. This author (probably a consortium of hedge fund personnel) published four highly negative articles on NWBO from July to October of 2014 and then disappeared only to reappear and make comments on Bohsie’s Seeking Alpha article. The four articles were done at a time when there was a widespread short selling attack on NWBO. Anyone want to guess which hedge fund he works for? Anyway, Biotech Hawk in attacking Bohsie praised the data from Kite’s CAR-T drug Axi-Cel. His  comments personally atttcked Bohsie without any attempt to refute the article with meaningful data. Two of his comments are shown below

Comment 1 from Biotech Hawk:

You assume that NWBO is publishing correct information. They have a history of manipulating or misrepresenting data in the past.

You assume NWBO management is competent in running or analyzing clinical trials.

You assume that the PFS data released are accurate. PFS is a subjective measure and it is not clear if NWBO is doing independent analyses of progression, their own interpretation, or using investigator judgement.

You assume that the 83 patients are not just lost data (e.g. patients that had disease progression years ago, but the data has not been entered in the database).