ohm: Your comment to Respert that MRK should just buy out CYDY, get LL approved, and move on from Keytruda is exactly what I have been thinking while diving into the LL/Keytuda CRC clinical trial conjecture and discussion on the board these last few days. Given your assessments that the LL/K combo would be neither synergistic nor capable of extending Keyrtuda's looming 4 year patent cliff, why wouldn't MRK just adopt the Green Bay Packers successful strategy of drafting Aaron Rodgers and then developing him for 3 years while Brett Favre moves through the twilight of his HOF career? MRK doesn't need to extend Keytruda when it can buy at an even better drug with plenty of patent life at a reasonable discount to replace Keytruda by the time the cliff is reached.

Notwithstanding the above, I have seen nothing to support the notion that MRK is pursuing a BO of CYDY. And even the prospect of a MRK/CYDY partnership for oncology indications would be conjectural at best. But it is mind-boggling to me that given Keytruda's patent cliff situation and MRK's many recent clinical trial failures to find a combo drug to extend the patent, that MRK has not become aggressive in pursuing LL in one way or another. Given the LL/Keytruda mouse study, it seems inconceivable that MRK would not be aware of the role of CCR5 in facilitating metastasis in so many lethal conditions and LL's singular ability to block CCR5 from doing such damage.

As you and others have pointed out, NIH funding, if it becomes available, may be the best pathway for CYDY to commercialize LL. But while that pathway has the potential to eventually generate a very high sp, it will also involve far greater risks for ultimate LL approval and the sp than a BO at a reasonable discount against potential value.

If MRK management ever wakes up and acts accordingly, I would welcome the shareholder debate over these alternative pathways.