The latest Investing Matters Podcast with Jean Roche, Co-Manager of Schroder UK Mid Cap Investment Trust has just been released. Listen here.
Hi Ivy, I would assume that anyone who wanted to know what Scancell are doing would sign and NDA before being shown any of the intimate details of the technology. If they then wanted to take IP off the premises then yes I would ask them for a time-limited, non-returnable deposit set against any future agreement. I would also insist that any legal recourse in the NDA was predicated on using UK Courts. Not that Scancell can easily afford to persue any breach in the courts.
I think a financial commitment is what sorts out the buyers from the tyre kickers. Few people in business will turn down the chance to check out a possible competitors IP if there is no financial cost. I think I would have been charging some sort of fee to play with Avidimab, especially as the university will be getting part of the deal if it ever closes. Even the odd £50 -100k entry ticket would be enough to make people get on with checking it out. As for BioNtech, they can keep playing till the cows come home if there isn't a definite cut off date with money involved at least beyond that date.
I would never release IP without some sort of payment against future sales but I guess with a product that may or may not work as they might want it to, it depends on your relationship with those doing the looking. At least the patents are in place.
I must admit when I started in licencing it was a new company and a new industry for me. It requires some organisation and some legal help but the actual deals are the same old same old for most salespeople: a lot of slogging around tradeshows and getting to meet the right people ie the decision makers. Lots of techies talk to other techies and get excited about new stuff, but they are not the ones who have to put cash on the line, similarly, I have no doubt CH knows lots of Researchers and Doctors but how many CEO's?
We need a deal-maker, someone who has an idea in his head about who he wants to meet, what he wants to sell and how much he wants for it. Moreover, that someone has to be prepared to get out of the office and do the leg work, once a few deals are over the line , you can start to sit back (a bit) as the calls will start to come to you.
A brief anecdote, I wanted to speak to the MD of a particular company but could never get an appointment so I had a sample delivered and marked" to be signed for" motorbiked right onto his desk. He called to tell me I was a cheeky bugger, had a laugh, and we were in business a week later! People buy people first!
Apparently our science is world class, you would think some of the big players would be watching us (and watching each other watching us) like hawks, maybe they are. But it's time to convert some of the the potential into Pounds. I sometimes think a lot of professional people find talking about money a bit distasteful.
I mentioned the discussions from 2012 on animal applications over the weekend. If we are in the licencing business, slicing and dicing the IP becomes the main activity. I used to work licencing software , the options were almost endless , upfront payments, royalty payments in lieu of up front payments, combinations of royalties and payments, products in English, products localised for different languages, regional licences, national licences, exclusive licences, non exclusive licences maximum licence periods... and on and on
If the Scancell platforms can improve on current solutions the opportunities are also almost endless., cancer licences, virus licences, animal, human, regional, national, upfront payments, ongoing royalties, . Continual product improvements , 2nd, 3rd, 4th generation re-licences. mindblowing really.
Apols if my original post sounded pessimistic, it wasn't intended to. It mainly struck me that whilst there have been quietish spells, they could have spent some time looking at some of the alternatives for their technology.
Rats, I recalled the stuff about Melanoma in horses from back in 2012 and that it seemed a reasonable route for a licencing deal of some sort. If we had let one of the big players in the Animal Health market have a couple of years to play with immunobody at the time we may have had a regular income stream from that source by now. All "ifs and "buts" I know but if it had worked for Horses who knows where it might have lead to and maybe at a faster pace? I'm guessing its easier to get permissions to test on animals than humans? The Dog vaccine Ivy mentioned (ONCEPT?) is 4 or 5 doses at $1000-$1500 per dose! A 10% royalty on 20,000 doses would bring in $2m- $3m a year to Scancell!
Sometimes, its the ability to slice and dice your IP that pays off in the long run, I bet JK Rowling never envisioned films and merchandise when she started writing Harry Potter!
I wonder if anyone has given this conversation any thought since 2012? This could be plan B!
Copied from another place but I remember there being quite a lot of discussion at the time:
Hey Soulac Don't know whether you've noticed yet but you have just been answered on LSE. You asked: Dose this vaccines have any value in the animal world? Pale Rider replied with a series of posts: Soulac - Jabs For Pets Today 10:23 Yes is the answer to that, big time! The market for treatment of cancer in pets is huge. Scancell's immunobody platform for the production of vaccines to treat cancer and infectious diseases can be licensed to other companies for the production of their own vaccines. Scancell has a number of partners already developing vaccines using the company's immunobody technology. It is expected that pharmaceutical firms that currently specialise in the provision of cancer treatments for animals, principally pets, will be interested in pursuing Scancell's DNA vaccine approach simply because of its outstanding results in animal studies. http://www.vetmed.wisc.edu/Animal_Cancer_Treatment.9.3.html Jabs For Pets - Melanoma Today 11:03 Dogs can develop melanoma of the mouth and this is one condition for which DNA vaccines are already being approved. Of course it must be emphasized that pets can develop all the cancers that humans develop ..... lung, breast and so on. That is why this market is expected to be so important now. It is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars. http://www.examiner.com/article/dogs-oncept-vical-s-new-therapeutic-dna-vaccine-for-treating-canine-oral-melanoma-approved-by-usda Marketing Drive Today 11:28 Aside from Scancell's cancer vaccines, there is their globally patented technology on which these vaccines are based, the company's ImmunoBody® platform. This DNA vaccine technology can be used to manufacture vaccines to treat infectious diseases as well as cancer. In fact it is the company's intention, upon completion of SCIB1's Phase 1 trials, in December this year, to offer the platform to other vaccine companies using data from Phase 1 as a marketing aid [its important to bare in mind that Phase 1 will, in addition to its initial objective to test for toxicity, gather clinical data "to demonstrate cellular immune response and tumour response"]. Combined with the data for SCIB1's success in animals and the equal success of SCIB2 in animal studies it is hoped that the platform will be eagerly exploited by developers of vaccines for humans and also by those developing vaccines for companion animals.
FBI Director Chris Wray on the extent of Chinese spying and theft on the USA: Might go some way to explain the VRS situation.
https://www.fbi.gov/news/speeches/the-threat-posed-by-the-chinese-government-and-the-chinese-communist-party-to-the-economic-and-national-security-of-the-united-states
Diggle added 2,925,000 shares on December 17th , then disposed of 1,500,000 on April 28th . Yesterday there were 700,000 of round figure (100,000 +) sales and today 725,000. I reckon he has sold all the extra shares he bought on 17th December .
To be honest, I wouldn't trust the FDA any further than I can throw a grand piano, there seem to be too many huge corporations that are much too cozy with FDA people. I think a much better strategy is to get proof of concept in the UK or similar jurisdiction and then start to accumulate others around the globe, leaving the FDA to whichever large Corporation decides its wants our products to sort out.
https://www.fdareview.org/2019/07/29/worried-about-big-pharma-then-reduce-the-fdas-regulatory-power/
http://www.center4research.org/fda-rushing-risky-drugs-market/
We seem to forget that the USA is a foreign country with its own ambitions and ways of doing things, it is foolhardy to assume the FDA would act impartially towards a UK based operation, especially if US companies have eyes on it or its technology.
Indeed it does lead to something, nearly half a million people who now know a little more about vaccines than they perhaps did before they took a few minutes to watch it. Half a million people who will speak to others and point out that putting all your eggs into one basket is not a prudent policy. This is a nail that needs hitting on the head again this week. if the message is delivered often enough eventually Government will take notice, perhaps someone will mention the "Nottingham Vaccine" during the interminable 5 o'clock presentations this week?
This whole covid19 epidemic has been handled disastrously by Government , civil serpents and much of the NHS. 100s of Billions have been spent to very little effect. The Elderly in care homes have been deliberately exposed and 10s of thousands of Cancer sufferers been put at greater risk and it now all seems to me be more of a backside covering exercise. If Covidity never sees the light of day because Government wouldn't put a few millions into it and the main Oxford-based contenders dont deliver, Handcork and Johnson could be totally culpable for 1000s more unnecessary deaths should Covid 19 or a variant ever return. Good job they are politicians, they would be unemployable elsewhere.
It would do no harm to ensure every MP gets a copy of the video ASAP you can find your MPs email address here
https://www.writetothem.com
It seems that Hydroxychloroquine might still be a game changer if used early.
https://academic.oup.com/aje/advance-article/doi/10.1093/aje/kwaa093/5847586
Interesting discussions today if disappointing SP . The thing that grinds my gears about the finance situation is that the Government is happy to shell out £2.5Bn on filling potholes over the next 5 years but if we dont find a vaccine that works how many will be using the roads anyway? Would it really hurt anything to chuck £20+m at Scancell even if in hope rather than expectation at this stage? The faster we fix this, the faster we start paying off the debts we are running up. Finger are crossed that someone will take a punt on an alternative solution not from Oxford.
More to do with their inability to create any excitement around their science. They keep selling the sausage instead of the sizzle. So, they RNS that they are building a vaccine .. hurrah, then they do a few interviews that viewers, presenters, listeners dont have a clue about.... Result is wasted effort. They should have simply said, "we have what we believe is an exceptional treatment for loads of cancers and have now applied that approach to Covid. We think our proposed solution will be better than antibodies especially for older people and will be longer lasting and will stop other future Corvid viruses too". Noone cares about the "how" they just want to know what it does , how well it does it and how soon they can get it. So the effort to get some PR coverage has been wasted on an audience that couldnt understand most of it and the SP starts it inevitable slide back to 4 or 5p .
This share needs regular news and updates. The initial Covid announcement needed another one soon afterwards just to stir the pot . Above all else they need to do a deal with someone for something, anything. Is any thing happening with BioNtech?Avidimab? Is there any sign of Cancer Research starting their trial? Who knows? Certainly not shareholders.