Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Bantham...........and yet Greg Alexander remains Angle's biggest shareholder.
Sangi - looks like it
A new patent application from Angle was published on 21st December - WO2023241796 - CELL RECOVERY METHOD AND DEVICE:-
'a cell harvesting method and device for the efficient sedimentation and retention of cells from liquid samples onto a solid support with low cell losses and low impact on cell morphology'
Good to see Angle continuing to improve and protect their IP
https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2023241796&_cid=P21-LR564F-96154-1
BOJO - Yes astonishing progress has been made in genomics and a useful video thanks. You may already have come across it, but if not have a look at research on the dark genome - mind blowing stuff and one to watch for the future!
BOJO
I think you're correct - my understanding is that Angle have developed an automated workflow that enables CTCs and ctDNA to be extracted from the same patient sample with Parsortix being linked in to the relevant NGS system. IMO this is absolutely the right commercial approach. There are tens of thousands of NGS systems already in use in labs across the globe and they are not going to move away from their installed systems. It's a much more attractive proposition to add a Parsortix machine and they will then be able to offer their patients/clients ctDNA and CTC analysis from the same blood draw. Angle will also be offering the same from their own labs.
I'm not sure many fully appreciate the significance of the RNS last week. We don't yet know what the future market for CTC liquid biopsies will look like because it simply doesn't exist at the moment. It's not a case of pinching a part of an existing market which is much easier to predict - it's an entirely new market. How that market evolves depends entirely on the sort of research announced by Angle last week which clearly demonstrates the utility of CTC analysis. In future, physicians prescribing a targeted therapy who may have been happy to rely on ctDNA may now also request a CTC liquid biopsy and labs may want to ensure they are able to provide that service.
I have read some really poor posts on the bbs over the last few days and the judgement call here isn't whether or not this resarch is important, it's whether you believe Angle can capitalise on it.
Ivy,
Worth remembering though that the redemption date for those CLNs is also next year. We have the prospect of Lindy touting a £30m to £60m raise and Redmile sitting on a mountain of stock due to the conversion of the CLNs. So it may well be that Redmile are the ones pushing for a NASDAQ listing. Having said that, I completely agree with your reservations and the old adage of be careful what you wish for very much applies IMO.
Matt,
It's always difficult to make judgement calls on these things and this is the perfect example of how we can all take away something different from the same set of words. I felt she was simply trying to manage expectations as she had previously done when discussing other potential glycan mAb deals. I believe she was trying to add some perspective and get across that the early stage milestones will be relatively modest in the context of a deal worth £600m. ie. don't expect the first milestone to be £75m! Hopefully we'll find out in the coming months.
By the way, I was one of those who disagreed with you regarding the terms of the deal. I thought it was a cracking deal given the stage of development and that the target is notoriously difficult. However, I'm genuinely sorry if you felt you were being 'slaughtered'. Not my intention at all.
Violindog - an odd way to discover that the strategy is to carry out a £30 to £60m raise next year. I can only hope that something was lost in translation and that it was a comment taken out of context but if this is indeed the case then I'm not sure this is the way to communicate it out -Shareholders deserve better IMO .
Matt - it's inconceivable that any licensing deal won't include early stage milestones. Most likely first triggers range from selecting a defined product or clinical trial approval for a phase 1 study through to recruitment of first patient to that trial. I think Lindy's comments at the AGM related to the amount involved and of course what constitutes a 'substantial payment' is very subjective. Even early milestones though should give a nice chunk of non-dilutive funding and we do know that Genmab have confirmed to Lindy that they intend to take SC129 into the clinic.
Excellent RNS and good to see a significant chunk of non-dilutive funding. From memory cash burn last year was around £15m and during this financial year C4x have now received just under £25m through milestones and sale of the Orexin-1 programme. The licensing agreement for the NRF2 Activator programme was signed just over a year ago and it's obviously performing well in preclinical development at AstraZeneca.
More importantly, today's RNS is great validation of C4x's ability to successfully develop small molecule drugs in the hot field of immuno/inflammatory diseases and bodes well for the rest of the pipeline. There are a handful of underappreciated UK bios quietly going about their business without resorting to they hype of others and way below the radar of most AIM investors. It's brilliant to see them progress.
Ruck ,
Sorry to read that you've been unwell and wishing you a speedy recovery.
Moonparty - correct. Think it would be somewhere in the region of 1.2 billion fully diluted although I haven't checked for the exact figure.
Yes, a very Merry Christmas. Safe travels if you have a journey and hope you all manage to enjoy a healthy and happy time with loved ones. Also remembering those who are no longer with us.
Cleanerworld,
Not an opinion, simply a statement of fact. The Texas Biomed. Institute is a not a commercial biopharma company, it's a not for profit research institute relying on grant and philanthropic funding.
Lindy was asked about the connection between Scancell and Texas Biomed. She gave a full and I believe honest answer. If there is more to it than that, she could easily have given a different answer without divulging anything that needed to remain confidential. It's up to each of us to decide whether or not we can take comments from our CEO given at the AGM at face value.
As for Covidity, afaik it shares IP with Avidimab and ImmunoBody and so there may be good strategic reasons why Scancell may decide to hold fire on licensing (assuming they could). If/when they do license they will want to make sure that the licenensee has the resources, experience, drive and strategy in place to take it all the way through clinical development and on to market. This is where I am offering an opinion (FWIW) - I don't believe Texas Biomedical is the home for Covidity. For now, Covidity brings to the table proof of concept for the ImmunoBody platform in infectious disease as well as early safety and efficacy data for Avidimab and that can only add to the attraction of the ImmunoBody platform.
Cleanerworld,
Just for clarity, that deal was with the German Merck which is a completely different company to the US Merck and has no connection to Keytruda/checkpoint inhibitors.
Mayo/TF
Absolutely wasn't intended to be heavy handed on the response and if that's how it came across then many apologies but the implications of what was being suggested in terms of the integrity of the Board was pretty strong too I think.
Mayo,
That's a pretty serious suggestion. IMO the facts around the delays to the publication of the annual report are exactly as stated. For your suggestion to have any truth you would have to believe that Lindy Durrant would lie to shareholders and that BDO would sit back and allow their reputation to be tarnished by those lies. In reality , at the very least BDO would demand that Scancell immediately retract their comments and set the record straight. They also would probably not be prepared to continue to act as Scancell's auditors.
Burble - thanks! Think marcus came up with the same answer on advfn.
TF - just to clarify that Texas Biomedical aren't a biotech, they're a not for profit research institute funded by government grants and public donations (hence the PR). So they're not a commercial organisation.
Violindog,
Yes, it seems to me that the strategy is to complete the current study and quickly follow on with a randomised phase IIb for iSCIB1+. This is the 100 patient trial mentioned by Lindy. Based on the results of that trial I think the intention would be to cut a deal rather than continue to phase III. So I don't think Scancell intend to complete registration studies themselves, nor file for marketing approval. Pure speculation of course, but if Moderna and BioNTech's vaccines continue to do well then the timing would be perfect in terms of optimising the valuation. Much better to license a phase III ready product to a market that has been created for you by your competitors, than a phase IIa that has not been through a randomised study to an emerging but still unproven market. Just as importantly though, the timing fits in nicely with the redemption date of Redmile's CLNs and perhaps this is their planned exit.
I realise that the above won't be popular with some here but it's just my opinion and I may well be wrong. They could decide to try and license at the end of the current study. Time will tell, but it's good to be talking about the possibility of licensing SCIB1.
All of the above with the obvious caveat that we need to see the rest of the current study continue to produce fantastic results.
Have now had a chance to listen to the recording and FWIW these are the points that stood out for me:-
1) Genmab have advised that they intend to take SC129 into clinical trials. It's just over a year since they licensed the mAb and this decision means that it must have performed well in preclinical development. It will be interesting to find out what product they have created and the setting for future trials. It's likely that clearance of an IND (clinical trial approval in the US) and/or first patient dosed will trigger milestone payments. As Lindy has confirmed, it's not going to be enormous, I'd have thought probably similar to the upfront payment, but Genmab's decision to continue development is much more important than just the cash. Plenty of licensing deals fall down at this first hurdle and it was by no means a given that they would go ahead. It's an important endorsement of the platform and the path to future deals with other biopharma companies will be that much easier.
2) Genmab are interested in another mAb
3) The Modi-1 neoadjuvant study was cleared to open for recruitment at the end of July and first patient will be dosed tomorrow. An example of just how long things can take in biotech..
4) When talking about the Modi-1 combination trial, Lindy explained why they can't run an ovarian cohort and that they need to demonstrate synergy in other cancer types. She said they're recruiting for head and neck cancer and then went on to say that they're considering opening a new cohort but I couldn't hear the cancer type - it was ............carcinoma. Did anyone else catch what she said?
5) Good to hear from the new CFO, Sath Nirmalananthan who I thought spoke very well, as did the new Chairman and his comments regarding the future of vaccines was particularly encouraging.
Ciaskin - posts crossed
miavoce - thanks to you too for cleaning up the audio and for the link
WTP - the KOLs are part of Scancell's Clinical Advisory Board. As the name suggests, a CAB is a panel of experts who advise on strategy, design and exectution of clinical trials. Scancell established their CAB back in 2019 - see link below for the members. They've obviously have recently had a meeting to discuss the SCOPE trial.
https://www.lse.co.uk/rns/SCLP/clinical-advisory-board-and-update-on-modi-1-hsxy84fbmswobie.html