And that's about the only thing that you can hang your hat on.

They (ABT) may believe that the SPA is, at heart, not worth the paper it's printed on but that what matters is the formal feedback process from the FDA. Maybe the SPA process is actually a way to get very thorough, formal feedback, which may be useful in the case where it's a complicated trial. If there was some other delay associated with trying to get an actual signature, they may have made a call to just go, thinking that they have what they need.

I don't know however. Something doesn't quite add up.