Last week, FDA granted accelerated approval to Replimune Group Inc. for it’s biologic, RP1 (vusolimogene oderparepvec), following the FDA Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee’s 10:3 vote in support of the biologic in combination with nivolumab for the treatment of advanced melanoma in patients who have progressed on prior anti-PD-1 therapy.
This episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Youtube.
The approval and the CTGTAC decision follows a years-long imbroglio with two previous applications for RP1 bouncing back to Replimune.
After the first Complete Response Letter from FDA, in July 2025, melanoma experts and patient advocates pressed the agency to reconsider and conduct another review, with FDA receiving several letters from experts from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Banner MD Anderson, and Moffitt Cancer Center.
Ultimately, Congress, the White House, and HHS were drawn into the dance. According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the White House pushed FDA to get Replimune its third review after the company “met with the White House in early May, arguing the rejections didn’t match up with the Trump administration’s desire to help terminally ill patients.”
In this episode of The Cancer Letter Podcast, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher with The Cancer Letter, and Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor, discuss the implications of this news on the future of the agency and drug development.
“Now, there is no way in the heck that anyone can predict what FDA is going to do and why and how,” Paul said. “In the past, you could sort of figure it out. You know, ‘Oh, you have no chance here.’ In this case, I don’t know. I mean, I’m in the fog.
“Prepare for more of these because what we’ve seen is FDA not acting the way FDA ever has. FDA just being something else. I don’t know what that means. I don’t think anybody else knows what that means…
“I’ve never been more puzzled writing a story about FDA, and I think this is just the beginning.”
This episode is sponsored by the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center. Learn more at ukhealthcare.com/markey.
Stories mentioned in this podcast include:
- New directors Herbst and Gius chart a future built on AI, collaboration, and rural access
- FDA grants Replimune’s RP1 an accelerated approval on third submission after 10:3 vote from advisory committee
- Consumers are increasingly accessing U.S. News rankings of cancer hospitals via AI chatbots 2026 report shows no change in the top-five lineup
- Marketing hope before surgery: Does the new Keytruda commercial tell patients the whole story?
- Senate leaders introduce revised, bipartisan stopgap bill that would ban OMB from finalizing rule that would politicize science
- Federal judge declines to block Medicaid work requirements
- HRSA redrafts 340B rebate pilot program after courts block the original version
This episode was transcribed using transcription services. It has been reviewed by our editorial staff, but the transcript may be imperfect.
The following is a transcript of this week’s In the Headlines, a weekly series on The Cancer Letter Podcast:
Jacquelyn Cobb: This week on the Cancer Letter Podcast…
Paul Goldberg: I think what’s really interesting about this one is that now there is no way in the heck that anyone can predict what FDA is going to do and why and how. It absolutely has become-
Jacquelyn Cobb: Oh, you mean generally? Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. In the past, you could sort of figure it out. You know, oh, you have no chance here. In this case, I don’t know. I mean, I’m in the fog. And if anybody pretends not to be in the fog, I want to hear from them.
Jacquelyn Cobb: You want to hear from people pretending not to be in the fog?
Paul Goldberg: No, explaining to me why they’re not in the fog.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Why they’re not, yes.
Paul Goldberg: Think about it. Here is an agent that is administered into the tumor. If you administer alcohol into the tumor, the tumor will do strange things and go away or something, or some of them will, and some won’t, who knows? If you administer a knife to a tumor, things will happen, as well.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Like a biopsy.
Paul Goldberg: So by itself, that doesn’t mean. So, there’s got to be systemic effect, but it’s a single arm study and not a large one of that.
You’re listening to the Cancer Letter Podcast. The Cancer Letter is a weekly independent magazine covering oncology since 1973. I’m your host, Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter.
Jacquelyn Cobb: And I’m your host, Jacquelyn Cobb, associate editor of The Cancer Letter. We’ll be bringing you the latest stories, groundbreaking research, and critical conversations shaping oncology.
Paul Goldberg: So, let’s get going.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Hello, Paul. How’s it going?
Paul Goldberg: Hi, Jacquelyn. How are you?
Jacquelyn Cobb: I’m good. Did you get a haircut?
Paul Goldberg: I did.
Jacquelyn Cobb: It looks very sharp, very nice. I like it.
Paul Goldberg: Well, thank you. Thank you. I look less like a slob. Actually, my haircut, my barber’s daughter, who’s this adorable, I guess, 12-year-old, 10-year-old, whatever she was, she’s young, once called me and said to me, “You look like Einstein.”
So, now when I make an appointment, I say, “This is Einstein.” And they know exactly who I am and it’s really fun.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes, yes.
Paul Goldberg: All right. So, get the show on the road. Let’s get on the rails.
Jacquelyn Cobb: We got off the rails pretty early this time.
Paul Goldberg: Yep.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Last week’s cover story was an episode of The Director. As always, I’m not going to dive too deep into that here because you can go listen to the entire podcast yourself on Spotify, YouTube, Apple, all the places. We had Roy Herbst and David Gius. Roy Herbst is director of Dartmouth Cancer Center, and David Gius is director and professor of University of Cincinnati Cancer Center. And they talked a lot about, they basically are both kind of starting their jobs as cancer center directors. And as you look ahead into this, however you want to describe the world right now, especially in the world of science and the world of designated cancer centers, et cetera, they looked ahead and that’s how I’ll leave it.
Paul Goldberg: Well, it’s really interesting to just bring together two of the newest cancer center directors and just ask them, “Hey, this is your dream job. What’s it like?” And this is also catching them during that period of the first few weeks where they’re drinking or trying to drink water out of a fire hose, trying to understand how does that work? So, it’s kind of fun. And they both were as excited as anybody can possibly be with this amazing, amazing job.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. Well, thank you for the proper summary, Paul.
Story #2 was, we did a story about the recent FDA advisory committee about Replimune’s RP1 therapeutic. That’s what we’re going to be talking about in more detail, or one of the stories we’ll be talking about in more detail today. But yeah, we’ll dive in.
Our Story #3, Sarah wrote a story about the US News and World Report Cancer Hospital Rankings. We do that every year. It’s kind of a weird little story that we do, but this one was pretty interesting because this was the first time to my knowledge, or my memory at least, that we were talking about the idea of AI. AI is everywhere. It’s ubiquitous. But I just though it was interesting that it made the headline and the news even in this story, which was surprising.
And then we had a really cool guest editorial by Raja Flores. He spoke about a Keytruda commercial and basically dove into the nuance of what that promises patients and maybe what that leaves out in terms of, again, the nuance of cancer treatment. Especially it was neoadjuvant immunotherapy, right, Paul, in lung cancer?
I just wanted to mention one cancer policy just because it’s been a big story for us as it’s been playing out. But the OMB rule, proposed rule, that has sort of taken at least the science community by storm. There’s been a lot of pushback. It would really politicize science as sort of the issue, and a lot of scientists have really pushed back on it. There were like… What was it? Was it 500,000 comments? I’m forgetting now, but there were so many comments from the community.
Paul Goldberg: It was 500,000. That’s the correct number.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Awesome. Good, my memory’s still working.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, you’re still doing well for 30.
Jacquelyn Cobb: For almost 30. Oh my gosh.
Paul Goldberg: For a 30-year-old, you’re doing okay.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Hey, I’m 29. I’m not 30 yet, not 30 yet.
Paul Goldberg: All right.
Jacquelyn Cobb: But anyway, yeah, the whole question as we were covering that story is how it was actually going to play out because there were sort of some questions and because OMB has to read all of the comments, but it doesn’t stipulate what it has to do in response to the comments, that was sort of an open question. But recently the Senate leaders proposed a stopgap funding bill, a continuing resolution, through December 11th, I believe? Through December of 2026. And it includes a stipulation that basically, what is it? It bans OMB from finalizing the rule at least until December, until the end of the CR.
So, that was really exciting news. It was just a cancer policy. We didn’t dive too deep into it, but it was just really exciting to hear that there’s actually some movement on Capitol Hill about this proposed rule that really everybody was not too happy about, not too excited about.
So, yeah, I think that that’s it. Is there anything else from last week, Paul? I think there were some other good cancer policies. A federal judge declined to block the Medicaid work requirements. HRSA redrafted the 340B rebate pilot program, et cetera, et cetera.
Paul Goldberg: Et cetera, et cetera. It’s worth reading. It’s all interesting to read and it’s all up there. But really between the RP1 story, that approval, and the story of US News and World Report Rankings, that’s pretty interesting. And of course, the directors, but the directors is one of those things where it kind of speaks for itself, as you say.
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Paul Goldberg: Shall we start with RP1 or should we start with the US news? Both are interesting.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Let’s start with RP1 probably, right?
Paul Goldberg: yeah.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Let’s get the juicy stuff out of the way or the meaty stuff maybe is a more appropriate definition.
Paul Goldberg: I don’t know whether it’s juicy or meaty. It’s definitely not grizzly, like grizzle, not bear.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah, like fatty.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah, it was really interesting. I mean, it was sort of this end to a saga. There was a whole history going back at least several years with Replimune and FDA. This was the third submission of RP1.
RP1 is based on a strain of herpes simplex virus that’s engineered and genetically armed to maximize tumor killing, potency, et cetera, et cetera. But I think the important part about this biologic is that it is injected directly into the tumor, so it’s an intratumoral therapy. And that will be important later, I promise. But for the saga part of it’s that this was the third submission after two rejections and two rejections that the company wasn’t necessarily expecting.
And it fit into this broader trend where companies were getting unexpected answers, negative answers, unexpected rejections from FDA at a time when there was a lot of change in leadership. At that time, Marty Makary was the FDA commissioner and Vinay Prasad was head of CBER. So, there was a lot of tumultuous, “We don’t know exactly why these answers are coming out of FDA,” et cetera, et cetera. And there was a huge pushback from the melanoma community. RP1 is a drug for melanoma. And I’m sure Paul’s going to have stuff to say about that.
Paul Goldberg: Oh, I’m preparing to say all of what I have to say, drawing mental notes.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes, I can feel them building. But what I’ll say just before I turn it over to Paul is that what actually happened last week was that FDA brought the application, this third submission of basically the same data, to an advisory committee meeting. It wasn’t ODAC, but it was the Cellular Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee. And they voted 10-3 in support of the biologic, even though that’s sort of… Yeah, we’ll get into that as well. And then FDA approved the drug about a week later.
Yeah, I’ll pass it to you.
Paul Goldberg: Close to the PDUFA date is why they approved it quickly.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes.
Paul Goldberg: It wasn’t a shotgun wedding. It was PDUFA, respect for PDUFA.
Jacquelyn Cobb: And it was actually technically after the PDUFA date. It was a couple days later.
Paul Goldberg: Well…
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes, it was around the PDUFA date.
Paul Goldberg: Well, I think what’s really interesting about this one is that now there is no way in the heck that anyone can predict what FDA is going to do and why and how.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Oh, you mean generally? Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. In the past, you could sort of figure it out. You know, oh, you have no chance here. But in this case, I don’t know. I mean, I’m in the fog. And if anybody pretends not to be in the fog, I want to hear from them.
Jacquelyn Cobb: You want to hear from people pretending not to be in the fog?
Paul Goldberg: No, explaining to me why they’re not in the fog.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Why they’re not, yes.
Paul Goldberg: Think about it. Here is an agent that is administered into the tumor. If you administer alcohol into the tumor, the tumor will do strange things and go away or something, or some of them will and some won’t, who knows? If you administer a knife to a tumor, things will happen, as well.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Like a biopsy.
Paul Goldberg: So, by itself, that doesn’t mean… So, there’s got to be systemic effect. But it’s a single arm study and not a large one at that.
Well, before you get into the logic of the decision… Which you actually went through much closer than I did. I was just kind of being confused by it, as were the committee members. But let’s get to the who makes the decision.
In the good old days, pre-Makary days of FDA, something like this would’ve gone to the FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee, which would’ve decided and you would’ve been able to understand why it’s deciding that. And this is interesting because it’s a really complicated sort of thing here. And what would’ve happened at ODAC? I don’t know. I think it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell for as long as Vinay Prasad was there. There’s no way. And both of the complete response letters were signed by Prasad. But then there were others sort of political meddling and so forth.
But FDA really, instead of just going straight to the committee, the committee decides, are we making decisions based on their recommendations of advisory committees? Are we not making recommendations of advisory committee?
And by the way, the reason it didn’t go to an advisory committee in the beginning is that Commissioner Makary was completely opposed to the idea of holding advisory committees. So, this whole idea of this culture of… I don’t know if it’s a transparency. Yeah, definitely it’s transparency of something of a decision like that and insulation from political influences, all of that… I mean, going forward, if you ask me if a drug has a snowball’s chance in hell, I will not be able to honestly tell you. In the past, I could sort of tell you what my questions are. I wouldn’t be able to tell you where it’s going to go.
But here, the committee is asked to divine a systemic effect of this thing. How do you see it in a tiny single arm trial? Yeah, it’s a horrible disease. Yeah, it’s resistant to a lot of therapies. Yeah, there is a need. So, getting an accelerated approval may make sense, but when I’m listening to the-
Jacquelyn Cobb: [inaudible 00:16:05].
Paul Goldberg: … blah, blah, blah, blah, blah advisory committee… You looked at it more carefully. How did you understand it?
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah, it was a weird one. I mean, I just wanted to go back. I have a lot of little quotes I wanted to bring up because I feel like the quotes were the most helpful with all of this.
I mean, the ODAC committee members are always what I lean on the most, and of course the presentations from FDA and the company. But the one thing that I think was helpful for me, because I just haven’t covered a lot of melanoma, was a quote by Paul B. Chapman, Chief Medical Officer of the Meyer Cancer Center of Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Presbyterian Hospital.
He said, “One perspective to remember for those of you who are not in melanoma is that we’ve been injecting melanoma since 1891. And we’ve injected it with all sorts of things, bacteria, viruses, toxins. Most of them will result in regression of the injected tumor. But almost none of them have an abscopal effect,” which is this sort of systemic effect where you see a reduction in tumor size, I believe. Don’t quote me on that. Again, I’m sort of in a clinical area I’m not super familiar with. But that were not injected with this actual intratumoral therapy.
And so, I thought that was really interesting because that was something that I really hadn’t had any sort of exposure to. And maybe you had before, but that was something that was really new to me.
And then something else that I think made it hard for me was what you were saying, Paul, about the fact that it was a single arm trial. Beyond the fact that it was just a single arm trial, it was a single arm trial that was like, there was no historical control arm that could really be put together and created.
Paul Goldberg: Oh, synthetic control arm or something.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. Synthetic, but also historical, right?
Paul Goldberg: It’s comparison, yeah.
Jacquelyn Cobb: So, in the past, basically they did a study or they looked at, they did an analysis of the heterogeneity of the population that was actually on the single arm trial. And it was just not representative of other trials. So, it was like, first of all, there were a lot of people who had… What was it? This actually wasn’t in the story. It’s a little exclusive. But it was like basically there were clinical characteristics that made up the population of that study that would have or could have contributed to it looking better than it was. And so, that was another sort of confounding issue.
Thirdly, I think what was really tricky is that, like you’re saying, Paul, the main issue, and this is what was repeated over and over by all of the members, was seeing tumor regression or tumor response in the injected tumors is not that notable. It’s been done before. But again, this sort of systemic effect is what would be novel, is what would be exciting, et cetera.
So, that’s what they were trying. And RP1 sort of puts forward the idea that it does. That was what they were going for. They had examples of showing that. There was a lot of messiness in terms of what that data actually looked like. FDA got down into the patient-level data and even showed an example showing that the criteria we have to measure response to intratumoral therapies is really not equipped for intratumoral therapies. They use the RECIST criteria, which is specifically for solid tumors and not for intratumoral therapy. And literally they had a perfect example of like, let’s take one patient who has two lesions, both are injected, and then at the next time one of them shrinks, one of them stays the same, and a new lesion appears. What is that? How do you classify that? Is that a response? Is that a progression?
And there were a lot of issues. One of the people, I want to say the one radiologist on the committee said, “This is really messy data. Going from a progressive disease to not evaluable,” these are response classifications, “to a complete response, you just shouldn’t see that. So, we have to explain that.” And so there were some real design or trial conduct issues. It was just so incredibly messy is kind of my point.
And I think the issue is that the other side of things and why most of the committee members ended up voting in favor is that the other option for this population, the only other approved drug is one that is intensive. It’s in-patient. It’s long. It has a lot of adverse events and it has an 8% treatment-related mortality rate.
So, the way that I heard… And I could be misunderstanding, this is a little bit of my interpretation of what happened, but what I heard from the committee members was that because this is a population that is really in a lot of need, RP1 was originally given breakthrough therapy designation. They were pushing for, or they voted for, the accelerated approval. Every single ODAC member, or basically even if they didn’t say it outright, they all alluded to this, every single one that voted yes still said, “We don’t actually know. We just see that there’s enough signal for an accelerated approval with a confirmatory trial, a Phase III randomized confirmatory trial confirming whether or not this signal is actually showing something.”
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Well, but it’s interesting because in the past, had it gone to ODAC in the old days, which aren’t that long ago-
Jacquelyn Cobb: Not that long ago. Yeah, not that old.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, there would’ve been a Pazdur moment where Dr. Pazdur would say to the committee… And this is assuming it went to the committee when it would’ve ordinarily gone to the committee. In the beginning, he would’ve just reminded, “This is why we don’t know this. This is why we don’t know that.” Just kind of lay it all out. Maybe that drives the committee in some forms, but usually what I saw was a lot of flailing on this one. Actually, the most interesting one was Janet Wittes’ comment. Do you want to read that?
Jacquelyn Cobb: Sure.
Paul Goldberg: That’s kind of amazing comment because she voted yes, which is funny because she’s one of the great biostatisticians.
Jacquelyn Cobb: I know. I know. And the other biostatistician, Karla Ballman, was like, “I hear the sort of confusion or question around clinical meaningfulness, but as a biostatistician, I can’t vote yes.”
Paul Goldberg: She can vote yes, she can vote no, but she voted no.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Sorry, I did get a little off-topic here. Wittes said, “So, my yes was pretty close to a no. And what I really want to do is abstain because I don’t know the answer. And what I feel is yes, it’s evaluable. You can evaluate that. So, that is to me a non-word. Is it clinically meaningful? I have to listen to those people who treat. I don’t know. But it seems to me, if you ask me, do I know what their event rate is? No. Do I know what the duration is? No. Can I evaluate that? Yeah, I can evaluate it. I don’t know. So, I voted yes. But don’t take that as a, yes, this is convincing data. Okay? Yes, I can evaluate.”
And that’s always come up, the idea of committee members, please answer the question that we’re asking. But then of course, the votes are taken as a signal of support or non-support for the application. And that’s not what it’s supposed to be.
Paul Goldberg: Prepare for more of these because what we’ve seen is FDA not acting the way FDA ever has. FDA just being something else. I don’t know what that means. I don’t think anybody else knows what they mean. But I think that Dr. Wittes’ comments should be engraved on white marble in gold.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Where?
Paul Goldberg: Shaped like a question mark, fuzzy and whatever. Just really an amazing comment. Amazing. That’s why we stuck it on the top of your story, which was of our story.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: Because I’ve never been more puzzled writing a story about FDA and I think this is just the beginning.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah. Well, on that lovely note, should we quickly go over the US News?
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, speaking of being puzzled.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Do you want to start on that? Because you were an editor on this. I just glanced over it. I didn’t read too, too much on this story.
Paul Goldberg: Oh, US News?
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. We write it every year. And sometimes there’s an interesting story there, but it’s a totally non-scientific index that people rely on in making decisions. And actually, it has ended careers of cancer center directors. At least there’s apocryphal stories about that, slipping a few slots down there is going to get you sacked. So, it’s always fun to cover it.
If you look at the top five for this year…
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes. You want me to read them?
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. Or don’t, either way.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Because it’s the same, right?
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, it’s the same as last year. To me, that was the most interesting piece of it. Then nothing changed in the top five. And then we have this thunderous flood of press releases breaking through like it’s breaking a dam from every institution saying, “We’re up seven points.” Please. We know anybody who makes these decisions based on the standing in US News or anybody who makes employment decisions based on that, it’s just silly.
And it’s just the way the structure is designed, you’re always going to have MD Anderson on top, which has been the case for what? A long time. It’s in the story. It’s accurate in the story.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Since 2015.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. And MSK once got in there, but only over… That’s the most interesting story we’ve ever done on this, was when a lot of MD Anderson’s data were not getting in.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Oh, really?
Paul Goldberg: Yeah.
Jacquelyn Cobb: This is before my time, I guess?
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. And that was pretty funny.
Jacquelyn Cobb: And that’s when MSK got first?
Paul Goldberg: This was from their sickest patients, wasn’t getting in because they were going into the emergency department and that data wasn’t getting in. And then MSK got very upset by this and wrote a letter to US News saying we should recalculate using these data. And as they did, US News said, “No, we can’t accept data from you. We only accept data not from institutions.” Which is kind of interesting because they accept data from institutions when they evaluate colleges.
So, if you want to really go down into the rabbit holes…
Anyway, we cover this story as a service to our readers. And sometimes there’s something interesting we can manufacture. To me, the most interesting part of the story was that nothing changed since last year in the top five. And that was the original headline.
Jacquelyn Cobb: I know. I was just going to say that.
Paul Goldberg: Yes.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Got overruled.
Paul Goldberg: Got overruled by committee here. And I said, “Okay, fine.”
Jacquelyn Cobb: It was funny though. Katie, our director of operations, made a really good point. She was like, “This news headline is: nothing happened.”
Paul Goldberg: To me, that’s news.
Jacquelyn Cobb: I know. I know. But it’s funny.
Paul Goldberg: Nobody in the top five is going to get sacked. Top five. Top five what? Who knows?
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: I mean, a lot of these places are fantastic and they can be in the 50th and they are still a fantastic place to go. And it’s not the same as the NCI designation in the least. And the definitions of what it constitutes, which cancer center, is something else. And it’s mired in their history and their methodology. And it’s not sensitive to change. You can have an institution in turmoil, but nothing happens on the index.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yeah.
Paul Goldberg: So, personally, I don’t know. Oh, the only thing that was kind of really somewhat interesting in this story… I shouldn’t poo poo our own stories.
Jacquelyn Cobb: The only thing that was kind of interesting.
Paul Goldberg: The only thing that was halfway interesting is when we talked to the person in charge.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Ben Harder?
Paul Goldberg: They said that more people, more patients, are accessing this thing through AI. So, that’s the story. Actually, I’m not really sure I understand how they got those numbers. Maybe it’s from last year because this year they just published it. The embargo just went up, but that’s the idea.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Well, I think it’s. Oh yeah, true. A lot of our content is appearing in AI summaries. Ben Harder, who is the source on this story, he’s the managing editor and chief of health analysis at US News. So, in some cases, fewer patients go to publishers’ websites to access information because AI is summarizing it and providing it to them. So, I think that was interesting.
Paul Goldberg: That’s kind of their observation, that more and more people are going there through AI. I actually do not know what that means in terms of implications. It probably makes it a lot more accessible. It certainly doesn’t affect their rankings.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes, yes, doesn’t affect the rankings. It’s just access.
Paul Goldberg: It’s just access.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes. Just access, just that.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah, so that information is suddenly becoming more influential, which fine.
Jacquelyn Cobb: How you feel about that?
Paul Goldberg: Oh, it’s really hard to get me to feel anything about any of that.
Jacquelyn Cobb: What did you say? Anything about anything?
Paul Goldberg: About that. No, it’s just…
Jacquelyn Cobb: I get you.
Paul Goldberg: It’s a 6-7 as they say.
Jacquelyn Cobb: It’s made it onto the podcast. For listeners, Paul is so locked into the kids these days.
Paul Goldberg: Yeah. We just had four grandchildren born six months apart. It’s completely insane. But 6-7, only one of our grandkids says that.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes, yes.
Paul Goldberg: He’s turning eight.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Yes, there you go. And Paul knew 6-7.
Paul Goldberg: 6-7-8.
Jacquelyn Cobb: There you go. But he knew it before I did, which is… I don’t know what that is. Not quite embarrassing.
Paul Goldberg: It’s embarrassing. It should be.
Jacquelyn Cobb: I don’t have any kids around. I don’t have any teenagers I’m hanging out with. And I’m not trying to get this information off TikTok. That would be embarrassing. But anyways, beautiful combo. Anything we missed, Paul?
Paul Goldberg: Probably a lot of things, but they should probably be allowed.
Jacquelyn Cobb: They should stay missed.
Paul Goldberg: They should stay missed. I am so ready to take a few days off and just stare into space or not think about the cancer letter for a bit because –
Jacquelyn Cobb: Just a little bit.
Paul Goldberg: Yep. Well, here’s the thing. This job, it’s seasonal. July and August, early August are really rough because we’re all burnt out and we just need a fresh start, which we get in September. S, next time you see us, we’re going to be all ready to-
Jacquelyn Cobb: All chipper.
Paul Goldberg: Of course, we’ll be doing some podcasting, but that’s easier. On the verge of taking a few weeks off to do something else, this is a particularly good time to be a journalist.
Jacquelyn Cobb: Agreed. Agreed. All right. Thank you, Paul. And listeners, I will see you throughout August, but I will also see you bright and fresh for normal podcasting stuff in September. Bye.
Thank you for joining us on the Cancer Letter Podcast, where we explore the stories shaping the future of oncology. For more in-depth reporting and analysis, visit us at cancerletter.com. With over 200 site license subscriptions, you may already have access through your workplace. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and share. Together, we’ll keep the conversation going.
Paul Goldberg: Until next time, stay informed, stay engaged, and thank you for listening.
