Northwest Biotherapeutics has buried data from its completed brain cancer clinical trial for so long and so deeply, I might be one of the few people who remembers that results from the Phase 3 study are still, technically, undisclosed.
“Technically” because biotechs never hide or delay the release of good news. As of Tuesday, the wait for Northwest Bio to disclose study results reached one year. Realistically, the only lingering suspense is how, exactly, management will try to spin the treatment’s failure.
The treatment that Northwest Bio is developing, called DCVax, is a patient-specific dendritic cancer “vaccine” that relies on technology almost two decades old. It’s a subtype of cancer immunotherapy that, with the exception of one outlier, has never proven to benefit patients. Brain tumors are particularly aggressive and difficult to treat, so expecting DCVax to be effective against them is like believing birdshot will stop a charging rhino. No chance.
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