How NW Bio Fools Us by the Myth in Data Visualisation

At the 5th Annual SMi Cancer Vaccines Conference in London in Sep 21 2016, Northwest Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ: NWBO),("NW Bio") a U.S. biotechnology company developing DCVax® personalized immune therapies for solid tumor cancers, presented an updated analysis of the Phase I DCVax®-Direct Trial data. The presentation demonstrated the cancer vaccines market was promising and feasible. But the actual figure was dismal, and could be easily comprehensible if we change the modle of graphs.

DC Vax-Direct is designed to treat inoperable solid tumors. The Phase I Trial treated patients with multiple inoperable metastatic tumors who had failed existing treatment regimens. DCVax-Direct was directly injected into one of the patients’ tumors and most patients received three treatments.The Trial included 40 patients, with 39 evaluable, and covered types of solid tumor cancers.

Some highlights of Dr. Marnix Bosch's, Chief Technical Officer, update presentation included:

The top 20% of these patients have so far exceeded 2 years of survival and are still alive. The longest survivor to date has reached nearly 3 years.

• He attached the chart below for details:



The graph displays survival time of 40 individual pacients with different types of tumor. Although the green part can make the conclustion as the Doctor that 20% (8 people) of these patients have exceeded 2 years of survival and are still alive, if we group the 40 patients according to tumor types and then determine the median surial time to each type of cancer, the data make no sense.

• We change the y coondinate to the median of different types of tumor:
• To make it more clear, only compare with the median:

The chart shows that patients with only 3 types of cancer, all just have one case for the experiment, can survival above 24 months.

The top 30% of these patients as a combined group have an average survival to date of 26.7 months, compared with an average of expected survival times of 12.3 months. Individually, these patients have also substantially exceeded their respective expected survival times.

• Dr. Bosch also atached it with a chart:
The huge contrast between the two object looks shocking. However, NW Bio cheated the audience by using the most outstanding data in one group.

• We change to comparing the median to the expected data:
Compareing the meadian survival time and the expected one, the curative effect actually has not so much preponderance.

Summary：

• The gragp can confuse people if donot using the classification comparison.
• The graph can heighten an effect if just using the most outsdanding data.

Click Press Release to see the original data from NW Bio's webpage