Ibrutinib is neither miraculous, nor is it a cure for anything. Like any cytostatic, it has severe side effects, but it does disrupt a critical signaling path i

Ibrutinib is neither miraculous, nor is it a cure for anything. Like any cytostatic, it has severe side effects, but it does disrupt a critical signaling path in certain types of B-cell cancers. It's an expensive drug that cancer patients can take to prolong their lives for a comparatively short period. It's not a cure. Of course, since patients on Ibrutinib require daily doses, Pharmacyclics is golden for now, but only until better cytostatics become available or the patent runs out. Even from a business perspective, this doesn't seem to be a particularly inspiring story. By rights, this company should have gone under, but then randomly struck gold. However nice this turn-around may be for the founders, there is no special insight, scientific or business-related, to be gained here.