Member Info for Bermudashorts

'The binding moiety being either an antibody or TCR'

not 'and antibody'

A really interesting new patent application from Scancell was published today.

It is clearly linked to Moditope and covers a new protein, Nucleophosmin. I've not seen/heard any mention of this protein before from Scancell but of course could easily have missed it. A couple of points:

1) Nucleophosmin is overexpressed in a number of cancers but is particularly associated with blood cancers. The patent specifically mentions AML (acute myeloid leukaemia) as well as other solid tumours (lung, colorectal, renal, breast, ovary and liver)
2) The claims cover not only the citrullinated T cell antigen, but also a complex of the antigen and an MHC class II molecule as well as a binding moiety. The binding moiety being either and antibody or TCR.

A couple of quotes-

'The inventors have unexpectedly found that it is possible to raise T cell responses to certain antigens from NPM expressed on tumour cells in which the arginine has been replaced by citrulline. Furthermore, citrulline-containing peptides permit the development of T cell-based therapies, including but not limited to tumour vaccines, as well as T cell receptor (TCR) and adoptive T cell transfer therapies.'

'According to the invention, NPM peptides of the invention containing citrulline can be used as targets for cancer immunotherapy via T cell receptors (TCRs)'

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search/en/detail.jsf?docId=WO2021214022&tab=PCTCLAIMS&_cid=P22-KVB53M-51441-1

WTP

I think they're referring to lots of other jobs at the Science Park (with other bios) rather than with Scancell.

Really good to see Scancell tackling this issue head-on and well in advance of the planned redemption date. This removes all the uncertainty which would inevitably have built up over the coming months as the original date grew closer.

Will be very interesting now to see the financials tomorrow and the current cash position. I believe that some of the bigger institutional investors here had a problem with the short term of the CLNs from outset and they clearly were right to flag the issue. Today's news puts that to bed and gives Scancell a clear runway to get phase I/II data in across all platforms without the early redemption date of those CLNs hanging over their heads.

One final point, there has been concern raised here that Redmile were a predatory investor - if that were so, they'd be calling in those CLNs at the earliest opportunity. Instead they are demonstrating clear long term support for the Company and they're not doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Of course, Scancell now have to deliver.

Another good find WTP - thanks for sharing.

Great to see recognition of LD's innovation and Scancell's name listed amongst some giants.

Cleanerworld,

FWIW here are my views.

Covid has raised the profile of CEPI, but actually the Inovio Lassa Fever funding is a perfect example of what the organisation is all about and the original reasons for setting it up - ie. . The funding equates to just under £41m which sounds like a huge amount, but it's spread over a 5 year period and covers taking 2 different vaccines (Lassa Fever and MERS) to the end of phase II clinical studies with all that involves. Just over £20m per vaccine seems pretty reasonable and of course that will include development and manufacture of the vaccines and also the electroporation devices.

As for the Inovio vaccines, as your 2nd link shows, they've had a bumpy ride and like Ichor, the FDA seemed to have an issue with clearing their electroporation devices. Having said that, CEPI has access to some of the best scientific brains on the planet and would have carried out full due diligence before making the award, so we have to assume that they were satisfied with the scientific rationale behind them.

You only have to look at the impact of Moderna/BionTech's success on the whole mRNA field of research to see that it can only be a good thing for Scancell to see other DNA vaccines succeed. With the recent approval of ZyCoV-D, perhaps we are finally now starting to see the breakthrough we've been waiting for and hopefully Inovio and Scancell can follow the same path.

Cracking presentation here from Lisa Anson.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/964012/redx-pharma-plc-lonredx-presenting-at-the-proactive-one2one-virtual-forum---october-2021-964012.html

Burble,

Thanks for that. It seems there is still so much to learn and understand about this virus and many unanswered questions still around immunity - not just length of protection from both vaccines and previous infection but also what does it look like in terms of immune respone (antibodies/T cells).

I guess it will only become clear as real world evidence is gathered but one thing seems certain, no matter how tired we all are of Covid, just acting as if it's over isn't going to make it go away.

Another good spot!

She appears to only have joined Scancell only this month and is another ex-Immunocore employee, with a short stint at UCB in between.

WTP

Looks like it, well spotted.

As more of these roles are posted, it's worth taking a couple of seconds to read the job descriptions. Hopefully those who have posted that they have an issue with the new labs will then understand a bit more about the R&D process and come to realise why they're required.

AB124 -

Spot on, still while some try to set up their next trade they can at least be happy that Scancell finally have some labs constructed with bricks and mortar.

Ruck,

I'm not sure it's quite as simple as that. As Ray has pointed out, esssentially Lindy's team at Nottingham will discover and define a product and then hand over the clinical development to Sally Adams' team in Oxford

As far as the pipeline is concerned, Scancell have 3 products that are either already in clinical trials or clinic ready. For those products, the preclinical research has been completed, it's done and dusted and all systems are go. However, the clinical development still requires a huge amount of ongoing work and support in terms of running the trials, dealing with the regulators, compiling results etc.etc. My understanding is that this work will be carried out from the new Oxford labs.

Then you have the fact that both ImmunoBody and Moditope are platform technologies and of course if Scancell want to develop more products from those platforms then more research is required. We already know that there are plans for Modi2 and Modi3 and of course there is SCIB2 and Avidimab.

I think the only judgement we can make from today's announcment is that as promised, Scancell are following their strategy of speeding up clinical development and growing up, moving away from a small university spin off that is completely dependent on the goodwill of the University of Nottingham into a more mature, independent body. Great to see and long overdue!

Oh no, so very sorry to hear that.

Jeremy, as you can see, the thoughts of many are with you and sending my very best wishes and sincere condolences to you and the family.

Chelsea,

Very sad news indeed. I don't remember Jeremy1, was he the same poster as Jeremy53?

Chester,

Thanks very much - appreciated.

Good to see that the Covidity trial has now been updated on clinicaltrials.gov to show that it's recruiting.

Chester,

I believe hasiba has me on filter so he may well have missed some of that discussion.

Excellent update from RXC007 phase I trial, worth remembering that Sanofi has just paid $1.9m to acquire Kadmon's ROCK2 inhibitor so it's good to see RXC007 performing as expected in the clinic.

Anyone here managed to register for today's webcast? They have some really impressive speakers and it'll be interesting to hear their presentations. Have emailed FTI Consulting using the email address given but they haven't bothered responding - poor show from them and poor service to Redx.

violindog - I assume that the relevant CRO will be handling the data management for all of Scancell's trials.

Ivan,

Yes and of course the other point of interest is any difference between the 2 arms of the trial with their different PharmaJet devices and doses, especially with regards to the immune response. It will be interesting to see whether there is a significant difference and if so, how soon it's spotted.

Chester,

I'm sure that any interim reporting would include safety. We might just get a very general statement such as 'SCOV1 was well tolerated with no serious safety issues' or they might give more detail, I just don't know. Would be fantastic if we also get details on T cell and antibody responses but again that may be simply a general statement rather than detailed data.

As for timing - 2 weeks after last patient dosed might be optimistic. Producing data of high quality and integrity is vital and probably takes far more work that most of us realise. Data needs to be collected, verified, missing data identified and chased up, any anomilies sorted out etc. etc. so that the database is complete and clean. Sounds simple but have a look at the trial endpoints and imagine just how many data points there are. They need to make sure that each and every one is there and correct. Even one missing temperature or blood pressure reading for one patient needs to be spotted and sorted out. Apparently the average clinical trial generates over 3 million data points, and then of course it needs to be anlaysed. I really haven't a clue whether it's realistic to expect that to happen within the space of a couple of weeks..

Finally, your last question was about speed of recruitment. Remembering that these are healhy volunteers, I expect that they'd recruit, screen and dose quite quickly. It would be interesting to know how many have now received their first jab