Member Info for MB53

Only three days left!

We should get at least one RNS before June - Notice of the Annual Report and forthcoming AGM - always issued in last week or so of May.

With luck, we may also be informaed that C5 has finished and C6 is starting OR the MTD has been reached. Could get exciting!

It has been stated that Avacta could be looking to licence the development of one or more pre|CISION prodrugs. They have also stated that they plan to keep the development of AVA6000 and AVA3996 in house.

So what are the potential candidates for licencing?

The Therapeutic Pipeline lists AVA 6000 and AVA3996. It also lists AVA028 and 021 and the TMAC platform which all include Affimers and undisclosed targets. It seems unlikely that they would want to licence TMAC or the other drugs incorporating Affimers. This leaves the undisclosed targets which appear to be in an early research stage. These are presumably other pre|CISION prodrugs utilising generic cytotoxic drugs. Myles McNulty lists as many as 15 potential drugs including taxanes, oxyplatin, irinotecan, pemetrexed, gemcitabine and capecitabine.

Avacta have not announced their next candidate prodrug. It seems unlikely that Big Pharma will spend billions on a licencing deal for a drug that has not even gone through pre-clinical studies.

However, there are extenuating circumstances:

1) The pre|CISION platform has been proved to work by releasing cytotoxic drugs into the tumour microenvironment in therapeutic amounts.

2) A prodrug using an already established generic drug will mean that the prodrug is essentially de-risked and trial time reduced.

3) There will be a lot of Big Pharma companies who may want a piece of the action so they may want to get in early in the development cycle.

After all, we are looking at a potentially game changing platform that will revolutionise many cancer treatments in a multi-billion dollar market.

There are unlikely to be many RNSs in May. C5 is unlikely to finish until some time in June (the First US case was only dosed just before 27th April). Unless there is an unexpected one, the next RNS is likely to be the Annual Report towards the end of the month.

Here's a list of potential topics where an RNS will be issued. Some are certain (ie Cohort 5 completed, MTD reached), others are possible. Any topics that I have missed?

THERAPEUTICS

AVA6000
End Cohort5/Start C6
End C6/Start C7
MTD reached/Phase 1A completed
P1A Update
Start of P1B
P1B Update
Approval by FDA of AVA6000 for STS Treatment

AVA3996
IND Submitted
IND Approved
Phase 1A study starting

Other
Progress with other PreCision Candidates
Licensing Agreement Announced

Collaborations
New Collaboration Announced
LGChem Progress/Payment
PointPharma Progress/Payment
AffyXell News

DIAGNOSTICS
Licensing of new Avacta Diagnostic Products
Another Acquisition

OTHER
Proposed Listing on NASDAQ
Take-Over Bid

OTHER - ADMINISTRATIVE
Annual Report - Last week of May
AGM - Last week of June
etc

I share the frustrations of many posting here. There is a lack of detail about the strategy and the company's communications with investors is dreadful.
In defence of the company, the design of trials to show the benefit of SNG001 in the groups of patients identified (immunocompromised, patients on ventilators, vulnerable patients) will be extremely complex as these patients will all be on multiple drug regimens and interventions. It is very difficult to tease out the effect that one single drug is having. So maybe that explains the length of time it is taking as well as the detailed examination of all the data to date.

AVA2727D was as effective as Velcade in the preclinical trials that were presented in the poster and in the presentation yesterday. Avacta could licence the development of AVA2727D to Takeda for multiple myeloma treatment only and continue to develop AVA3996 itself. In fact the data from clinical trials of AVA2727D could help in speeding up the progress of AVA3996 to market.

Hanoi and BV - thank you for clarifying that the lack of FAP in blood cancers means that AVA3996 will not be competing with Bortezomib (Velcade) in the treatment of multiple myeloma. However, Velcade’s patent has expired and Takeda may be keen to find another proteasome inhibitor to replace it. The proteasome inhibitor in AVA3996 (AVA2727D) is similar but not identical to Velcade. So if it works it would have a new patent.
Could Avacta be negotiating to licence AVA2727D to Takeda??

AS stated that they were keeping both AVA6000 and 3996 in house. I thought he had previously said they were only keeping 6000 in house?
Also kept repeating that they were focusing on the broader market for 3996 - not competing with Velcade. However, if 3986 is as good as Velcade without the side effects it will obviously compete with Velcade. He stressed it a number of times - odd. I wonder if negotiations are already taking place with Takeda and he didn’t want to say anything that might upset the discussions?

I am constantly impressed by the level of knowledge and understanding exhibited by contributors to this board. I suspect that there are few professional traders or analysts that have anything like this understanding. That is probably one reason (amongst others) that the sp behaves so erratically and unexpectedly after good news is published. They just don’t understand the extraordinary potential of the Pre|CISION platform and what Avacta have achieved to date. It is sort of depressing!
The only thing that they will understand is a licensing agreement with an upfront payment of tens of millions which will confirm the value of the technology and make the company profitable overnight. I don’t think that that RNS is that far away.

Big Al is from Yorkshire - there is no way any licensee or TO bidder is going to get a bargain! And how do you value this game changing platform and a potential generic protease inhibitor? Some very hard bargaining going on IMO.

If the AACR poster contains significant information (over and above the abstract) or Alistair is going to reveal significant information then there will be an RNS on Monday morning.
If no RNS on Monday then we will just be getting additional pre-clinical data concerning the AVA3996 research.
Let's hope we get an RNS!

They seem to have updated some details on the trial protocol such as those mentioned and the addition of the US hospitals. However, they haven’t updated the revised parade 1b trial details. Interesting that the US hospitals are recruiting - must be for P1a cohorts so that should speed things up.

It isn’t blind so this will be a real issue if AVA6000 works as expected. I suspect that they will be talking to the FDA early and starting the accelerated approval application whilst continuing the trial.

They have posted it on their "News Page" but not on their RNS page under Investors. They also have not sent out their usual RNS notification message.

The London Stock Exchange.
https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/AVCT/notice-of-results-and-investor-presentation/15901351
Still not on Avacta website - perhaps they are having problems?

It is also on the London Stock Exchange Avacta page. Also mentions Investor Presentation on 25th April.

This RNS was published today - found it on V.X Mkts. Doesn't appear on Avacta website and wasn't sent it. Odd!
https://www.voxmarkets.co.uk/rns/announcement/e488d639-3350-4d96-a369-55f9a65f6bdf/

Good point RAH about it being recorded. But it is the elephant in the room. They detail amazing trial results that could completely change the way that much chemotherapy is used, then never discuss its implications! Just odd!

It was certainly a “Science” Day. The two external speakers gave very technical presentations concerning their areas of expertise. All very interesting but medical/immunology degrees needed to understand fully.

More relevant to Investors was the AVA6000 data from the P1a trial so far which was frankly very impressive. Certainly, a confirmation that the Pre|Cision platform works with Dox being released into the TME and very little systemically. Safety and tolerability excellent.

What was so odd was the relative lack of discussion about what the AVA6000 data means and its implication for the future treatment of cancer and the pipeline of pro-drugs.

All credit to Paul Hill whose questions kept trying to bring the discussion back to AVA6000.

The closest we came was Dr William Tap stating that if an improved version of Doxorubicin came along then it would become the standard of care overnight. But we knew this! We know that AVA6000 (on current data) is poised to completely disrupt the standard Doxorubicin market. No one said anything about this!

And virtually no discussion by the Panel, focused on Targeted Oncology 2030, about Pre|Cision and its role in targeted chemotherapy. It was like they didn’t want to discuss it. Just really odd! An opportunity missed to spell it out to the fund managers in language they could understand.