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Ray,

...........because the IP for ImmunoBody is owned by Scancell and the development has been funded by its shareholders. Scancell already have a huge task on their hands to take their existing pipeline forwards without further demands on their resources by having to divert attention to another academic project. If this does involve Scancell then it should have been RNSd and the press release from UoN wouldn't have said they are developing a new DNA vaccine platform, it would have said they were using the ImmunoBody platform - otherwise it's a bit misleading don't you think?

Of course I could be wrong but I hope not.

Ray/Burble

I don't think it does involve ImmunoBody. If you read the UoN press release it clearly says that it's a new DNA vaccine platform and makes no mention of Lindy Durrant or Scancell. It's very early stage development, a relatively small award and looks to be purely an academic project.

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/uk-aid-funding-for-nottingham-research-to-develop-zika-virus-vaccine

AB124

Yep as I understand it, the main reason for the extraordinary length of time it has taken to actually get Modi-1 into the clinic is the enolase manufacturing issue and of course the delay has now been compounded by Covid - frustrating .

AB124,

Sorry I have no idea other than the obvious which is to choose your CRO, trial centres and investigators very carefully and do all you can to ensure that the investigators are fully engaged and as enthusiastic as possible about the trial.

AB124

Well it can't harm to appoint a Principal Investigator who also happens to be a member of your Clinical Advisory Board

https://www.scancell.co.uk/company#cab

WTP

I think only the first 'PAD-2-mediated citrullination of nucleophosmin' paper is new. The others were published some time ago but looks like someone has been tidying up and bringing website up to date. There was some discussion on the papers here or on advfn when they were published - if I get a few minutes later on, I'll try to find and copy anything of interest.

scoobes,

Thanks for the head up, think he was discussing the clinical trial for a personalised vax from French biotech, Transgene.

https://www.clatterbridgecc.nhs.uk/news/first-patient-given-vaccine-cancer-pioneering-clinical-research

Chelsea,

IR - Investor relations, securing and keeping institutional investors happy and on side (retail investors too of course).

If you look at the management team on Scancell's website, you'll see all the new appointments. Each and every one of them is on the science/development side.

https://www.scancell.co.uk/company#mteam

Worth just stopping for a second to consider LD's role and the demands on her time at this stage in the Company's development, remembering that she also has her UoN role.

Quite rightly, it seeems that her priority as CEO has been to build the required infrastructure and team on the science/product development side of things but so far nothing has happened to provide any additional support on the commercial/business management/strategy side (including IR). I'm really pleased to see that they are obviously starting to tackle this void underneath LD and that RG has stepped in temporarily to provide some support. I honestly think it's as simple as that and I wouldn't get too hung up on the title, it can cover virtually any aspect of running the business.

NO!

I understand that there's a huge amount going on at the moment and RG has agreed to temporarily step in to support LD while they look for a new CBO. A very welcome development IMO.

Ciaskin's link to the Telegraph article is well worth reading. I hope the Government isn't simply going to jump on the mRNA bandwagon and that it's serious in its intention to make Britain a world leader in the battle against cancer through the use of vaccines. If so then you'd hope that one of the very few British bios specialising in cancer vaccines, led by an internationally recognised immunologist and cancer vaccine expert might be well placed to play a role.

https://digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/867/reader/reader.html?#!preferred/0/package/867/pub/867/page/29/article/267317

violindog - no they wouldn't need to start again. If necessary, they could just do a protocol amendment to the existing trial.

AB14 - Ah right, thanks am with you now.

AB124 - why backdated?

botski - good to hear from you and well spotted

ciaskin - thanks

John Glencross took part in a webinar yesterday looking at how VCTs impact businesses and the economy.

When discussing what ESG (Environmental, social, and governance) benefits they bring to the table, he mentioned that Calculus VCTs champion greater female representation. He gave Lindy Durrant as an example:-

'An example is Professor Lindy Durrant, founder and CEO of Scancell. She is an internationally recognised immunologist in the field of tumour therapy. She has worked for over 25 years in translational research, developing products for clinical trials including monoclonal antibodies and cancer vaccines. She has a personal chair in Cancer Immunotherapy in the Department of Clinical Oncology at the University of Nottingham. Lindy and her Scancell team are currently working on a potential mutation-resistant COVID-19 vaccine.”

https://www.theaic.co.uk/aic/news/press-releases/record-breaking-demand-for-vcts

Of course you can never be certain, but it would be an odd choice to use to demonstrate his point if Calculus weren't still committed to Scancell.

Chelsea 11

In answer to your 7.54 - highly likely

Also, happily out of the two vaccines, confirmation that SCOV2 produces the strongest responses to Omicron - further validating the decision to take SCOV2 through to trials in the UK.

'Scancell has previously shown in preclinical models that both SCOV1 and SCOV2 induce high titre antibodies and potent T cells against both the S and N antigens, and that these responses cross-reacted with the Delta variant. The Company has now confirmed in preclinical studies that although both vaccines induced responses against the Omicron variant, the strongest responses were seen with SCOV2.'

Reply,

Yes, at the last update in Dec, SCOV2 hadn't even been manufactured and have to admit that I was disappointed to see no reference to it in the Interims. Just goes to show that you never know what's going on behind the scenes. Not only has it been manufactured but it's been delivered to South Africa and is already being administered to patients.

Good to see the comments from Prof. Rod Dawson, the Principal Investigator for this trial, because in reality, once a bio has handed a trial over, they are very much in the hands of the study investigators and CRO.

'The UCT Lung Institute remains highly motivated to investigate the clinical potential of the SCOV1 and SCOV2 vaccines with our colleagues at Scancell.'

Ray,

I'm not sure, I guess it's the only way they were ever going to be able to measure a patient's immune response to the N protein when receiving a booster vaccine as obviously no other (approved) vaccines target the NP.

Perhaps it's as simple as only SCOV1 had been manufactured and they wanted to crack on with the trial but also likely that they wanted to keep all options open with a view to future partnering and so testing in both settings produces as wide a data set as possible.

I don't look at it as 4 doses. I see it as testing 2 different vaccines in 2 different settings.

Firstly unvaccinated patients receiving 2 doses of SCOV1 4 weeks apart in exactly the same way as we all have received our first Pfizer/Moderna/AZN vaccines. Then the same patients are boosted with SCOV2 at least 4 months later. This way Scancell can not only achieve the main aims of the trial which is safety and performance of the PharmaJet devices, but they also have valuable data showing the immune response of both vaccines in both settings and can directly compare to others.