"To me placebo effect is the only (small) risk. As you quite...

"To me placebo effect is the only (small) risk.

As you quite rightly point out, the placebo IS the standard treatment"

The standard care figures that the company has been mentioning is from other trials - hence it includes the placebo effect. But also those who quickly responded to standard care have been weeded out - so the standard treatment arm (that that we are being compared against) will probably perform quite poorly.

And yet the overall results look fantastic, despite being diluted by the (hopefully) poorly performing placebo/standard care group.