Burbles great post1 Jul 2021 10:53
Thanks to Burble for this post
May I add to Chester's post. For context, I hold a PhD which focussed on the development of antibody therapeutics for melanoma and cervical cancer and still work within the cancer research sector.
Scancell's pipeline is different to other biotechs and is strengthened by the fact that we are not specifically talking about individual products (think individual antibodies, or small-molecule therapeutics). We are talking about adaptable platforms.
Immunobody is a DNA based platform which has the ability to produce high-avidity T-cells to kill infected/cancer cells. Being a DNA based platform it is easy to produce a range of products from - so within a relatively short time a new Immunobody construct targeting a different cancer target or infectious disease target could be generated. Furthermore, the cost of DNA production is small and the product has high stability and a long shelf life meaning high profit margins/low costs.
Moditope is slightly different, but again is a platform based product - this time targeting stress-inducted post-translational modification produced by cancer cells. This has the potential to have low off-target side effects and also target large numbers of cancers.
Avidimab is another product and platform, which can be used to enhance antibodies and their direct cell killing efficiency. This means it can be added to any antibody currently on the market and in development which could improve their effectiveness. This could be licenced to any number of pharma companies developing antibody therapeutics.
Add to all of that we have the anti-glycan monoclonal antibodies. These are more stand along products on their own and have specific functions/targets for each one. These could be valuable as single entity products or as a package.
As a pipeline, what stands out for Scancell vs. other pharma/biotech start ups is the fact that the bulk of their products are platforms. This means they have almost infinite scope to generate new therapies once the platform is proved to work. So whilst there is risk with any product and platforms are no different, once one of these makes it through trials to the clinic, the platform is validated and so any number of 'flavours' of that platform, targeting any number of targets becomes available. Covidity validates Immunobody and Avidimab and a new needle-free delivery system in a single set of trials. SCIB1 trials validates immunobody in cancer and the new Moditope trial (esp. phase 2) is 4 hard to treat cancer trials in one.
If you compare this to a lot of biotechs/pharma they put all their eggs in a single basket with a single product. If that fails, it's back to the drawing board. If it works, many companies will buy that product and incorporate it into their own portfolio. Scancell platforms if validated could be v.v.valuable especially if licenced out to any number of players in the field of infectious disease or oncology.
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