Yup, thanks I.P., there's a bunch of business type stuff on the net about
this company, and also one prior thread in this group, including
contributions from you.

In that thread, RonB said:  "Doesn't seem like they could do any more toward
predicting PCa coming back than is already being done. "  If the operative
word here is "predicting," then their current claims about this new Px
product go against this statement.  i.e.. They do claim to have a better
prognosticator than any heretofore, both for biological recurrence and
clinical failure.

However, I share you guys' skepticism, for the reasons you stated, and more.
For example, the cohorts they used for both training and testing their model
came from only two medical centers, MSK and Baylor.  For all we know,
without published data, that could mean as few as two surgeons are
represented.  (If you look here:

http://www.aureon.com/prostatepx/Pathologists.pdf

you'll see there were only 61 patients in the validation cohort for PSA
recurrence.  The largest of their four cohorts was 345 patients.  I'd have
thought the post RP (Kattan?) nomogram  [which can be accessed from here:
http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/10088.cfm ]   for example, would be based on
much larger cohorts.  I have not actually checked that, btw.)

My guess is, they are testing waters with this post RP Px product.   (At one
point during the presentation, before he revealed the list price, the sales
guy polled the group on what they thought the Px product would cost.  He
also polled the group on their insurance plans.)  I'm guessing they expect
the post *biopsy* product, due in the fall, to be the big one.

Beyond being skeptical for reasons relating to lack of data, I am wondering
if there aren't ethical issues here as well.  Though it's not evident from
the website, one of the slides in the presentation indicated that the
founders of the company were, IIRC, all academic researchers at major
medical centers.  It sounds like they put their heads together and came up
with this "proprietary algorithm" upon which they could base a commercial
enterprise.  If they did this without publishing data, then one might ask
whether they were faithful to their academic contracts.  I'm not naive about
this stuff.  I worked nine years doing tech transfer for a major academic
medical center, so I know it goes on all the time.  Tech transfer from
academia to commercial ventures is a valuable activity.  I believe that, in
general, we all benefit from it.  (As an aside, there's a review in today's
NYTimes Books section on a new book by a Nobel-winning neurobiologist.  You
wouldn't know from the review, though, that he has cofounded, with two
academic colleagues, a commercial venture [called Memory Pharmaceuticals].)
But there are mechanisms - primarily the patent system - for protecting
commercial interests while making the data public, and it is reprehensible
for academicians to withhold their research from publication.

Anyway.  Bottom line: I went to my support group the other night feeling
pretty good about my post RP pathology:  G(3+3), T2b, negative margins, no
evidence of ECE, no evidence of vascular invasion.  I left feeling worried
again, because this company represented that one post RP G6 is not
necessarily like another.  One can be indolent, another aggressive.  And
they can tell the difference, but they're not telling exactly *how* they can
tell the difference.  Geez.  With support sessions like that, who needs
threats from terrorism, bird flu, and an autocratic presidency?  ;-)

-RonL