$NWBO Joanna Stanson Why Would She Leave Roswell Park for NWBO Now? Stanson was Director of Dendritic Cell Operations at Roswell Park, one of America’s leading cancer research institutions. She had helped build its GMP manufacturing facility, worked with advanced cell therapies and established herself in a highly specialised field. She had a career, credibility and a position at an established institution. Then, on August 31, 2026, she announced her departure. When asked about her next move, she replied that she was returning to biotechnology to work on a dendritic-cell-based vaccine. On October 26, NWBO announced it had recruited a former Roswell Park Director of DC Operations to strengthen its US manufacturing and regulatory capabilities. Now put yourself in her shoes. NWBO was trading around $0.16. The company was struggling financially, repeatedly raising capital through dilution, and still awaiting an MHRA decision on DCVax-L after almost three years. A rejection could severely damage its finances, its share price and its ability to pursue commercial manufacturing. What would persuade an experienced professional to leave Roswell Park for that uncertainty? A salary? She already had a career. Stock options? At $0.16, with further dilution and potentially devastating consequences from rejection, their future value would depend heavily on the company’s success. The excitement of building something? Certainly. But there needs to be something financially and operationally viable to build. And most importantly, why take that risk before approval when she could simply wait? Stanson is someone who understands dendritic-cell manufacturing from the inside. She has worked in the same scientific environment as Pawel Kalinski, whose next-generation dendritic-cell technology NWBO licensed from Roswell Park and the University of Pittsburgh in 2024. She and Kalinski even appear together on a 2025 scientific abstract involving dendritic-cell immunotherapy. This is someone exceptionally well placed to understand what NWBO has acquired, what it takes to manufacture these treatments and whether its plans are technically credible. I find it entirely plausible that, during recruitment, she was given detailed confidential briefings under appropriate agreements about NWBO’s manufacturing progress, financial plans and future operations. Perhaps she also learned about the NHSBT collaboration before it became public. August 27–28: CHM discusses unresolved concerns concerning an unidentified glioblastoma treatment. August 31: Stanson announces her departure from Roswell Park. October 8: NHS Blood and Transplant publicly announces its DCVax-L manufacturing collaboration, including Leeds and Oxford, with expansion being explored. October 26: NWBO announces its US manufacturing restart plans and specialist recruitment. My belief is that Stanson must have seen something sufficiently convincing to justify a major career decision. I suspect she had far greater confidence in NWBO’s prospects than the share price suggested. And given how much DCVax-L approval matters to the company’s financial future, I believe that confidence likely extended to its regulatory prospects. Of course, we don’t know what she was told, and an employment decision cannot reveal MHRA’s confidential conclusions. Recruitment discussions may also have started before the August CHM meeting. But that doesn’t diminish the central question about her incentives. She could have remained at Roswell Park and waited for the regulatory uncertainty to clear. Instead, she apparently chose to become part of NWBO’s next chapter before the decision. And now we see NHSBT expanding its involvement, NWBO preparing additional US manufacturing capacity and a specialist with direct connections to its licensed dendritic-cell research joining the company. To me, this looks like a professional making an informed decision about where she believes the future lies.