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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'

Violindog - the 'about Scancell' section is just a c&p of the standard wording used for every RNS - even the Covidity ones. If you check back, it's been the same for a good while now.

flakey - I'm pretty sure that the Genmab payment was received after 31st October so won't be included in the interims. We'll have to wait until the annual report in Oct/Nov.

marcus -

Thanks for answering my earlier questions - I thought you probably were Charles' son. I know your Father has a long history with Scancell and good to see the next generation carrying it on!

Thanks for interviewing Richard and for taking the time and trouble to post here. Look forward to watching the full interview when it's uploaded.

marcus,

Have only had time to listen to first few minutes, will listen to the full recording this afternoon, but good to hear from Richard again. Can I just ask:-

1) Are you the marcus posting on advfn?

2) Are you related to Charles?

Matt,

The fact that covid vaccines were fast tracked doesn't mean that any of those processes were skipped - they were prioritised and the regulators processed emergency use applications on a rolling review basis. Think it's a little unfair to say that the MHRA moved at a snails pace - they were the first regulator in the western World to approve a covid vaccine and both the Pfizer and UK's AstraZeneca vaccines were reviewed with incredible speed - much quicker than the FDA or EMA. In fact Nature described the MHRA as acting with 'striking speed'.

BTW, I agree with your earlier post regarding the Q4 update.

Wild, regarding your earlier post regarding a tail end to completed trials - the standard process for all clinical trials (not just immunotherapy trials) is perhaps much more involved and lengthy than many appreciate:-

1) The final patient recruited obviously has to receive all doses, but must also have completed all follow-up approintments and tests so there can be quite a time lag from recruitment of the last patient to end of the active phase of the trial.

2) All data must be cleaned and verified

3) Any discrepancies or missing data must be spotted and corrected - this can involve going back to the original investigators and can be a lengthy process. This step is cruicial for data integrity and also to ensure as much data as possible is gathered from the trial.

4) Once data has been verified the database is locked and the data set made available

5) Only now can analysis commence

6) Top line results are published, often while more depth analysis of the data is ongoing

7) More detailed results are published, usually via presentation at a scientific conference and/or peer reviewed journal

8) Full clinical trial report is submitted to the regulators

Wild,

It's worth reading the relevant slides from BioNTech's JPM presentation as they explain more about InstaDeep's role.

It's hard to even imagine the amount of data required to produce effective personalised cancer treatments. NGS technology has enabled the identification of mutations within a tumour, but how do you then select the best neoantigens and for each antigen, how do you select the best epitopes? Then factor in it has to be done for each and every patient at speed. It surely wouldn't be possible without AI. That's just one example of the role of AI in one disease type.

It seems impossible to even begin to identify the good from the not so good AI companies, but as BioNTech have been working with InstaDeep for years they'll know exactly what they're getting. As technology advances and we understand more and more about the immune system and diseases at a molecular level, it seems that AI is going to play a bigger and bigger role. BioNTech's acquisition of InstaDeep at this relatively early stage could prove to be a very shrewd move.

https://investors.biontech.de/events-presentations

Pippa

That's a very different situation. We were discussing the risk of the BioNTech/Scancell collaboration leading to BioNTech trying to effectively steal Scancell's IP. My point was that if the companies are collaborating and BioNTech wanted Scancell's IP then they'd simply buy it - either through licensing or by buying the asset.

The IP issue with Moderna, CureVac and BioNTech didn't arise from sharing IP as part of a collaboration agreement - afaik it's all about the use of the full length spike protein in the various mRNA vaccines and who owns the rights. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

pippamuffin

Re. your 12.24. BioNTech is one of the most innovative bios on the planet and have brilliant scientists of their own - I don't think they need to resort to stealing anyone's ideas. More to the point though, why would they try to bypass any patents and risk a costly IP infringement lawsuit when they could simply pay to license or acquire any technology of interest?

correction - studied not studies