I finally listened to this discussion and Dr. Porter played a relatively minor role and there was understandably more interest in Car-T than in tab-cel. Tab-cel is probably about 10-12 years older technology than Car-T. But the moderator did let him make his pitch and then he was asked an important question about how they solved the rejection problems with an off the shelf product. I visualized all the panelists sitting back and thinking that if they had solved that problem 10 years ago, all these tailor made expensive autologous technologies might not have seemed as necessary.
Problematic for Atara is that their algorithm for HLA matching may have some rather flimsy IP protection, but I still see them as having a large head start and more in house expertise than any competitors.