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Scancell quite active on twitter today - they've also retweeted the research posted by Ivy on ADVFN earlier this morning with comment from Prof. Karol Sikora:-

'The paper. Potentially very significant I think'

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30610-3

See Scancell have retweeted your link CC!!!

https://twitter.com/scancellpharma/status/1263762516271943681

Afternoon miavoce, hope you're OK and good to see you posting. Yes, I assume that even if Cliff Holloway wasn't aware of the scheme, he'll pick it up via the BIA coverage.

Whether that's true or not, and no matter how often you say it, it's completely irrelevant to the point I was making or the post I was trying to answer which was all about why Oxford get all the funding.

WTP and rest of the bb - apologies, I have tried very hard to let this drop but I'm not going to just allow my posts (or my intentions) to be misrepresented in this way.

I have now asked you 3 times to please stop. The gulf is no reflection on Scancell or it's science and there was no need to leap to Scancell's defence.

Please, please have another read of the first sentence of my post with an open mind and try to understand the point I was making. What I actually said, very clearly was:-

'there's a gulf between them IN DEVELOPMENT TERMS'

So we have a recently announced, as yet unfunded, project to 'develop' a vaccine and a fully funded, existing vaccine in clinical trials with hundreds of patients already recruited and dosed. How can you deny that there is a gulf between the 2 projects in development terms?

A new funding package has been launched by the Government via the British Business Bank to help biotechs. who may be finding it more difficult to raise equity finance during COVID-19. The Future Fund provides convertible loans (up to £5m) which have to be matched by 3rd party investment on a £ for £ basis.

I have no idea whether this is something Scancell could benefit from, but if they secured £5m in funding then possibly it offers the potential double up and £10m would hopefully take both SCIB1 and Modi1 further along the development path.

https://www.bioindustry.org/news-listing/bia-welcomes-financial-support-for-biotechs-during-covid-19-disruption.html

Thanks for your comments, you have absolutely no need to apologise, I will try my best to remember your advice!

As for Oxford, although they have received a huge amount of cash, they are by no means the only institution to receive grants and remember Imperial is coming along behind them too. If you look at the grants handed out to date by UKRI, you'll see that universities across the length and breadth of the country from Exeter right up to Glasgow have already received funding - not all for vaccines and most will be modest awards in comparison but based on the amount required to carry out each project. Hopefully this bodes well for Scancell's application. Time will tell.

Michaelhighbar,

Yep, lots going on and still very early days for Sorrento, don't think their candidate has even been tested in animals yet - thanks for the link.

Inanaco,

Please stop it - I have not recommended any vaccine.

Inanaco,

There have been many posts over the last couple of days criticising the Oxford vaccine and in particular the suggestion that the only reason they have received Government funding is the Oxford connection. These posts all went completely unchallenged.

If funding is being handed out by this Government based on who you are and whether or not you're part of that elite Oxbridge inner circle, then the logical conclusion is that Scancell have very little chance of securing Government funding for Covidity. I happen to think that's not true and that funding is being handed out based on merit and need and therefore the Covidity project should have an excellent chance of being successful in its grant application.

There is no more to it than that and for clarity I have not recommended the Oxford vaccine or claimed that it will be successful - I've simply sought to highlight the rationale behind its funding.

Seriously Inanaco, in your mind my comment:-

'we wait for the second wave of vaccines and hopefully Scancell will be part of that'

means

'and indeed you did REC. giving a poor vaccine while a better one is developed ... that is going out on a limb '

Good grief.

yep, in relation to this comment in your 9.12

'and indeed you did REC. giving a poor vaccine while a better one is developed ... that is going out on a limb '

Which vaccine is better? Do you mean covidity?

Inanaco,

Jesus wept, I'm not going out on a limb and I'm not defending the vaccine. I have said over and over that it may fail. I have also said wait for the trial results.

I'm really not going to enter into any further debate - carry on bashing.

Inanaco,

I'm not defending the vaccine in any sense - I'm simply explaining the rationale behind the reasons why it has been given government funding. It's the best we've got at the moment and it's all we've got. It also can very quickly be scaled up to produce millions of doses. Other than that we'll have to wait for the trial results.

It may be a fail or it may be, as with the monkeys, it prevents development of pneumonia and lessens the symptoms so that they may be no worse than a mild cold. As mentioned before, this vaccine should be safe for the elderly and those who are vulnerable due to pre-existing conditions - there are many people, including children and the elderly with pre-existing conditions who can see no prospect of a return to normal life due to the risk of COVID-19 and complete social isolation is no life at all. In the short term, if we get no more than a vaccine that lessens the symptoms, it would allow the country to return to normality while we wait for the second wave of vaccines and hopefully Scancell will be part of that.

Also it's not a race to find the one and only vaccine - I suspect/hope there will be several.

Going to leave it here as there is just no point in discussing any further and it has no impact on Scancell.

Inanaco,

The bb here yesterday was full of posts (including from yourself) criticising the Oxford vaccine and many were assuming that the only reason it had received Government funding was the Oxbridge connection. I simply posted the facts to explain why ChAdOx1 is being funded.

We know it's a new virus and the reason why Oxford were able to move so quickly is because they had an existing vaccine which they had developed as a vehicle for vaccines against other infectious diseases including coronaviruses. It was sitting there, ready to have new targets plugged in and the Oxford team started working on that as soon as the Chinese released the genome of COVID-19, before the world even knew it was a transmissible disease.

You are correct, in the phase I MERS clinical trial, 44% of patients produced neutralising antibodies and patients also produced MERS spike-specific T-cell responses which lasted for a year. It was a phase I trial - primarily looking at safety and dosing and they are now running a phase Ib with different dosing regimes to increase responses. I don't know whether they'll be successful but there are still no vaccines or treatments for MERS so any vaccine that limits the disease even in only 44% of patients has to be worth further evaluation,

Finally, of course they are still developing the platform on the job - that's the whole point of clinical trials, to identify optimum dosing levels, frequency, patient demographics etc. etc and you fine tune as you go along.

Sounds pretty advanced to me - they are the only vaccine in clinical trials in the UK and were the 4th in the World to enter the clinic. They've been dosing patients for over a month now and still there are only 8 other vaccines in the world in clinical trials.

How can that be an illusion? It's fact and a fantastic achievement by all involved - why knock it?

WTP/Ray,

I can see where you're coming from but I think the focus on Oxford is simply because they have the most advanced vaccine and the only one in trials, therefore they've reached the stage where funding needs to be ramped up earlier than anyone else. I'm certain as the Imperial vaccine moves nearer the clinic we'll see a greater focus there too.

I agree that we need to see a selection of the very best candidates receiving funding to give multiple shots on goal and I'm sure that's what will happen.

By the way, looks like Kate Bingham is a great appointment - experience of working in biotech./pharma and also investing/funding so will have a deep understanding and appreciation of both sides and also serves on the board of the Francis Crick Institute.

https://svhealthinvestors.com/people/kate-bingham

Sorry WTP but I don't think you can compare Oxford's vaccine with Scancell's - there's a gulf between them in development terms. Have seen lots of comments regarding ChAdOx1 on the bb today and think some balance is needed.

You may be right and nepotism may be at play here. On the other hand, if you were a scientist advising the Government on the best vaccine candidates to fund, the following might be valid reasons to choose ChAdOx1 .

1) Oxford had already developed ChAdOx1 for another coronavirus (MERS)
2) It had already been through Phase I trials for MERS, had shown that it was safe and shown encouraging signs of efficacy
3) Based on that clinical trial it had been taken forward into clincial trials in Saudi where MERS still rumbles on
4) The Oxford team started working on converting ChAdOx1 for COVID-19 in early January, even before the Chinese revealed that there was human to human transmission
5) It's not self-replicating making it safer to give to children, the elderly or those with pre-existing conditions

The speed with which the Oxford team have moved this vaccine into the clinic is astonishing and a fantastic achievement. We don't know whether the trial will be a success, partial success or outright fail but even today it's the only UK candidate in trials. I wonder what folks would have said if an existing coronavirus vaccine from one of the (if not the) top universities in the World was left on the shelf due to lack of funding?

CC - thanks for that.

Hmmmm - sounds as if Mirror reporter may have been a little over enthusiastic