Firering Strategic Minerals: From explorer to producer. Watch the video here.
TF - lol
Krafty - who knows whether they intend to hold, sell or have already sold? Tranche 2 were exercised back in 2018 but were subject to a 2 year lock-in period. I'd need to check, but am pretty sure Ichor continued to hold beyond the end of the expiry of the lock-in. I don't know whether they're still holding them or whether tranche 3 are also subject to a lock-in. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a vast number of shares.
chester - there's no connection to the current SCIB1 trial or iSCIB. Ichor could have exercised these options at any point from their vesting date (2016)
Just to comfirm my earlier post, this is from the last Annual Report:-
'The options have been granted at 4.5p per share and the outstanding 3,184,630 share options vested on 23 April 2016 and have an expiry date of 30 April 2023'
So it seems that Ichor are exercising before the expiry date. I have no idea why the expiry date was extended - assume it was part of the negotiations for the extended use of the device for the SCIB1 trial.
That's the third and final tranche of Ichor share options - all now exercised. For any who weren't aware, these options were granted to Ichor Medical Systems as part and parcel of the licensing agreement allowing Scancell to use Ichor's electroporation device to administer the SCIB1 vaccine. In total Ichor were granted options over 7.9 m shares in 3 tranches:-
Tranche 1 - 1.59m vesting on regulatory approval for SCIB1 clinical trial
Tranche 2 - 3.18m vesting on commencement of the trial
Tranche 3 - 3.18 vesting on completion of the trial
Ichor had already exercised their options over tranches 1 and 2 and a good while back were still holding tranche 2 - I don't know, but assume they'd sold tranche 1.
It's easy to read all sorts of things into the timing of these events, but these options had to be exercised within 5 years of vesting and that may have been the driving force here - Ichor either had to exercise the options or lose them. Of course there may be another reason, but it could be related to Ichor rather than Scancell.
Ruck,
Covidity is based on IP from both the Avidimab and ImmunoBody platforms and it would be an odd strategic move (IMO) to move it into a new company leaving the IP it relies upon behind in another - messy.
FWIW, I think that Zakari was Cliff Holloway's initiative to facilitate either a deal or funding for the glycan mAbs. I'm not sure it went down well with some larger shareholders and once CH had departed, it was unlikely ever to be used. Makes sense therefore to simply close it down.
corr
'he obviously will go ahead and prescribe'
should read
'he or she obviously will go ahead and prescribe'
Konar,
I'm not sure, it's probably too early to tell and don't forget the interims mentioned another 16 patients who had been recruited and I assume were undergoing screening - some of those may well be for cohorts 3 and 4.
I haven't checked the figures, but I think recruitment is probably more straightforward for the monotherapy arms of the trial - the patients have failed other treatments and no other therapies are currently indicated.
It's more complicated when it comes to the combination arms. As you know, in order to be eligible patients must be receiving a checkpoint inhibitor alone as their standard of care (SOC). However, where checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) are approved as SOC, it's often in combination with other drugs. For example, with triple negative breast cancer, Keytruda is approved in combination with chemotherapy, with renal cancer NICE have recently approved Keytruda as a first line treatment - but in combination with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor, lenvatinib etc. etc.. Where a consultant feels an approved combination of CPI and another drug is the best option for the patient, he obviously will go ahead and prescribe that treatment which would exclude the patient from the Modi1 trial. So lots of factors to be taken into account.
Pure speculation on my part, but given their limited treatment options, I also wonder whether patients might be more willing to consent to join the monotherapy arms of the trial .
DeAar,
Regarding your earlier post on the neoadjuvant arm of the Modi1 trial.
As you say, Scancell will only begin recruiting patients to the neoadjuvant study when they are given the green light to enter the expansion phase of the combination trial. However, it's worth noting that the dosing period for the neoadjuvant patients is only 6 weeks at which point they'll have their tumours surgically removed. A tissue biopsy will be taken from the resected tumour and will be analysed and compared to the baseline tissue biopsy.
Also worth noting that the neoadjuvant study is randomised - patients will either be given Modi1 as a monotherapy or Modi1 + Keytruda. So the tumour tissue analysis will not only look at changes from baseline, but also any differences between the monotherapy and combination arms.
So whilst recruitment won't start immediately, the dosing period is much shorter for the neoadjuvant patients and results should be available shortly after surgery.
Matt - I think it would and at some stage Scancell really must start hitting its own published timescales.
hyms - spot on.
No, I didn't realise either.
I know we've discussed it here before and that it's the logical next step for those cohort 1 patients, but I must have missed the confirmation from Scancell that they'd already applied for approval.
Johnny, thanks for the summary.
Dalester,
In order to believe that the Genmab upfront payment was a 'failure of salesmanship', you must know in the first place what a fair valuation would have been. What were you expecting and how did you arrive at that figure?
We're forever posting and reading links here to the latest biopharma deals with some fantastic price tags attached, but of course only the major deals hit the headlines and it's very easy to lose a sense of perspective.
If this was a phase 1 or even a clinic ready deal then I could understand your disappointment, but it's not. It isn't just a preclinical deal - it's preclinical without even a defined product. Moreover, it's the first deal from a new platform with no other defined products, no clinical evidence and no external validation. Then add in the fact that anti-glycan mAbs are notorious for having a high failure rate and off target toxicity. Genmab are taking on all that risk and will have to take SC129 down a long and expensive development path. This was always going to be a heavily back ended deal and it's to Scancell's credit that the overall size of the deal is so large for a single mAb with restricted use.
Matt,
There were a couple of disappointments for me too yesterday and we all see things differently, but I'm not sure your list is fair to Scancell.
Firstly, the cash wasn't less than expected - the Annual Report back in October last year clearly stated that the cash runway was to Q1 2024 and this was confirmed again at the AGM. The fact that nothing has changed and there has been no slippage was actually one of the positives for me.
The Genmab payment is in line with what is fairly standard for a deal of this type and it's a shame you feel disappointed because it was a cracking deal for SCLP and a much bigger deal than I thought they'd be able to land for a first preclinical product from a completely novel platform.
Regarding Modi - how can a product in the middle of early stage clinical trials be anything other than jam tomorrow? The situation with Modi is simply a reflection of the stage of development.
I could go on, but you get the gist. It's all down to expectations and I think that some others hit the nail on the head yesterday - expectations were just too high. At the end of the day, the interims are all about reporting the finances and they were in line with expectations.
Wild,
Very sorry to hear about your Dad's diagnosis. As you say, there are currently no real treatments, but there are some promising therapies in development. Redx Pharma have an in-house ROCK2 inhibitor in the clinic and also have licensed a Porcupine inhibitor to AstraZeneca which is also currently in clinical trials. There are several others from other developers too.
I only mention so you know that there is hope of better treatments around the corner or in case you might want to look into clinical trials at some point in the future. Wishing your Dad well.
Yep another strong update.
Richard Barfield has been a great asset, I'll be sorry to see him go and wish him well in his retirement. Great succession planning though with a smooth transition to another high quality CFO.
Ivy,
Thanks.
Merck certainly weren't listed on Redmile's last 13f SEC filing and am pretty sure they sold around the end of 2020 or early 2021, but would need to check old filings to be sure.
Kashdog,
I didn't doubt your intentions for a second, but think they made their exit relatively quickly.
Kashdog,
Are you sure Redmile are invested in Merck? Thought they exited a long while back.
Wild/Violindog - thanks for the replies.
Ruck/TF,
Was the comment about the immune response being too low posted on the macmillan forum?
Crumbs,
Think the 180 billion market cap for Genmab is in Danish Kroner - nearer 26 billion in USD
Yes, obviously very early days but excellent news. Given that they're already generating preclinical activity comparable to J&J's Safimaltib, this comment from Nick Ray bodes well for the potential of the final selected candidate:-
'Showing activity comparable to the industry's lead clinical compound with our first compound in this key xenograft model, coupled with the range of improved compounds following behind, gives us confidence in nominating candidate-quality molecules within the next six months'