Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
@cj - what exactly are you expecting to hear? We only heard about the 'end' of previous cohorts because we were moving on to the next cohort. This is not the case with c7. We know that they will continue to dose patients after the official completion and continue to follow their progress. So I doubt we will get an update for c7 until whenever they present the full Phase 1a arm1 results. Perhaps when we hear that patients have been dosed in c1 of arm2 there may be a mention that c7 is officially done (although with patients still being dosed), but I would guess that would be about it.
@Timster - The way it works for such conferences is that Avacta will apply for a 'presentation', where they give an abstract and possibly a general summary of the results. Typically, there are many more requests for presentations slots than can be accommodated by the schedule. The organisers of the conference (a panel of specialists) then choose which applicants will be given an oral presentation and which will be given a poster slot. So assuming the AACR is the place where Avacta are going to present the P1a data, they will have already applied for a presentation slot, and the organisers should decide if Avacta get a poster or oral slot sometime in Feb or March, and I guess we would hear a week or two before the conference.
Normally, Phase 1 data are not exciting enough to get an oral slot at a major conference. However, as we know, these are not typical Phase 1 results. So with the results presented so far, and knowing that some (much?) data have been held back explicitly in order to be able to apply for presentations and major conferences, I would assume that Avacta get an oral presentation. Last year Allogene Therapeutics got an oral presentation at the AACR (https://ir.allogene.com/news-releases/news-release-details/allogene-therapeutics-presents-interim-phase-1-data-allo-316), so it's definitely not unheard of.
Good discussion, and indeed seems like a lot of hints are being dropped. Disappointing though when they get the basics wrong, i.e., going into Phase 1b and that Precision was developed in Leeds. You can see where the confusion comes from (it's arm 2 of P1a and affimers are coming from Leeds, not Precision), but easy to check and correct.
@Profcheese - Thanks for your kind words. My post wasn't about Avacta management or the ability to commercialise a product. Both are, of course, very important and I'm sure that we (i.e., the BB) could have a constructive discussion on both. My point was only related to the seemingly constant suggestion that it is Heights that is responsible for the SP drop. Simply looking at the numbers shows that this isn't the case (even under the additional added theory - without evidence - the Heights forward sells the shares). Instead, this narrative that the repayments are important to the SP play directly into the traders hands. And as this share is, in my opinion, already over-controlled by traders (thereby reducing the possibility of the share obtaining a representative value) it's worth calling this out as BS.
Again, the drop has little or nothing to do directly with Heights. ~3 million shares is nothing. Since the beginning of January, the average day has seen volumes of ~700-800k in trades. So even *if* Heights forward sells, it is just a small fraction of the total market. And the SP has been dropping since the beginning of November, so this would be ~3 months to absorb the sale. So it simply isn't relevant in the overall picture.
What is relevant is the traders who are playing off this irrational fear. Just like the obsession with 'shorts', which when at the few percent level have no effect on a share.
@cj - yep, you're right. It shows how many are going for approval at the moment, how fast many will be coming to the market.
And as always when someone posts about large trades or certain MMs "on the bid", it has little or no effect on the share price.
@cj - as of August 2023, 11 ADCs have been approved, 92 have failed clinical trials and 164 are currently in clinical trials.
To be clear, I absolutely expect there to be a bidding war for ava6k. It is a novel treatment that overcomes many of the issues associated the current best-in-class ADCs. My point was that it is largely irrelevant who manufactures dox at the moment. Whoever makes dox is not generating massive profits from it, because it is generic. And that is likely to remain the case in the future. So BP will not be much concerned about losing their dox market. As Avacta will continue to buy dox from the manufacturers, their market in fact is likely to expand.
What BP will be concerned with is the fact that ava6k is likely to outcompete ADCs and become a standard of care for many cancer types. I expect that ava6k (and eventually ava3996) will eventually be used in tandem with other therapies for most solid tumours (FAP rich ones anyway, which is the majority). This is where the bidding war comes into play.
Note that dox is a generic drug, so while there are small profits associated with making it, it is unlikely to result in a bidding war. Also, note that ava6k uses dox, so Avacta will need to buy the dox from somewhere in order to make ava6k. So in fact, it is likely that ava6k will increase the dox market, and possibly even the number of companies making it.
Likely not trades, just book balancing. As we've seen time and time again, post hours trades have little or no affect on the SP.
Whoops, sorry about the double post...technical problems...
@Bella - if ava3996 becomes a solid tumour agnostic treatment which is effective and with few side effects, the multiple myeloma market will be nothing compared to the rest. For that matter, Keytruda (focussed on breast cancer) with $20B of annual sales will be dwarfed. ava6k is amazing and will multiply the dox market by 5-10x in my opinion, but ava3996 is the metaphorical bees knees.
And yes, if ava6k gets breakthrough status and/or accelerated approval, that would be the firing gun for the race to obtain the platform (even possibly before this, if it looks likely) as that all but guarantees that the following drugs in the pipeline will receive the same.
@BV - there is FAP in multiple myeloma, it's in the bone marrow where the cancer cells originate. There was some discussion on this mid-last year. However, that market is dwarfed by the solid tumour FAP rich market.
@Bella - if ava3996 becomes a solid tumour agnostic treatment which is effective and with few side effects, the multiple myeloma market will be nothing compared to the rest. For that matter, Keytruda (focussed on breast cancer) with $20B of annual sales will be dwarfed. ava6k is amazing and will multiply the dox market by 5-10x in my opinion, but ava3996 is the metaphorical bees knees.
And yes, if ava6k gets breakthrough status and/or accelerated approval, that would be the firing gun for the race to obtain the platform (even possibly before this, if it looks likely) as that all but guarantees that the following drugs in the pipeline will receive the same.
Agreed BV!
And I hope so Bella!
Just idly looking into cytotoxins on google today, I had a little check of doxorubicn vs. velcade (Bortezomib). As a reminder, ava3996 is a velcade analogue, and so to 1st order, I expect ava3996 (or more accurately, the warhead on ava3996 which is ava2727d) to have very similar properties.
When comparing to cytotoxicity (IC50 values) of velcade and dox in the same cell lines (Hela cells), velcade was about ~4 times more cytotoxic.
So it is more deadly than dox, but quite similar. Especially when considering that MMAE's are 3-5 orders of magnitude more cytotoxic than dox.
No take away message here...just thought it was interesting. So it is the mechanism of action for ava3996 (proteasome inhibitor) that makes it a potentially tumour agnostic treatment, rather than ava6000 which preferentially goes after reproducing cells (i.e., by disrupting the DNA of the splitting cell).
Thanks everyone for the correction regarding the repayment price. 👍
In that sense C3 never finished, as one of the patients from the cohort is still getting ava6k. The end of a cohort doesn't mean that the patients stop the treatment, nor do the clinicians stop followup (i.e., safety data, tumour progression, etc).
@Bella - there has been a lot of work done over the past couple decades on the dosing schedule of dox, with multiple trials looking at both the dosing level and also the dosing schedule. One clear result is that dosing more often (i.e., every week or two) is much more efficacious than every 3 weeks. However, it is also more damaging to the body, so most patients can't take the more rapid dosing (specifically, the damage to the white blood cells). So for a less toxic form of dox, a more rapid dosing schedule (every week or two) was always the goal.
As for the repayment, I believe that the shares given for repayment are always at 118p, as part of the deal (regardless of the share price at the time).
I would be surprised if Avacta attended, this is mainly about targeting genes for treatment. So a different kind of ‘precision’.