LONDON (Alliance News) - Scancell Holdings PLC saw its shares bid up early on Tuesday after it released results showing animals treated with a combination of its SCIB1 product and PD-1 checkpoint inhibition showed enhanced tumour destruction and much longer survival times than when only one of the treatments was administered.
Shares in the company were up 8.1% to 33.00 pence in early trade on Tuesday, putting it among the top five risers on AIM.
Scancell said SCIB1, the firm's ImmunoBody vaccine currently in development for the treatment of melanoma, had already been shown to have positive results in tumour rejection and survival in 55% of animals tested. Checkpoint inhibition, a blockade of the PD-1 immune checkpoint pathway, showed the same results when used on its own in the most recent study.
But in combination, the pair showed further tumour rejection success and a long-term survival of 85% in animals.
"The rationale for combining SCIB1 and PD-1 blockade in the clinical setting is increasingly compelling," said Lindy Durrant, joint chief executive of Scancell and professor of Cancer Immunotherapy at Nottingham University.
"The high immune-response rates demonstrated with our SCIB1 vaccine, teamed with the enhanced T cell infiltration using PD-1 blockade, prolongs survival and strongly supports the hypothesis that combining SCIB1 with checkpoint inhibitors will be even more effective in the treatment of cancer than when either treatment is used alone," Durrant added.
By Sam Unsted; samunsted@alliancenews.com; @SamUAtAlliance
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Scancell Holdings (SCLP)