"It's well established in multiple myeloma that survival and response rates have a statistical correlation, " says Barry Greene , general manager of oncology at Millennium.
Dr Wilson suspects that the liberal package of individualism and confrontation is the appropriate response to survival in a stable environment in which there is leisure for learning and reflection, and the consequences for a group's stability of such dissent are low.
"Right now we really don't have an explanation for why we saw response rate but we didn't see any overall survival benefit, " says Genentech spokeswoman Colleen Sweeney .
The auto industry, for instance, has historically had a difficult time firing workers due to outside political influences, even in moments when serious threats to the very survival of these companies existed and downsizing was seen as an appropriate response.
Celldex CEO Anthony Marucci has said previously that a meaningful and positive response rate in the study would be 12% to 15% with a progression-free survival of greater than 12 weeks.