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https://avacta.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/M19-framework-text.pdf
https://avacta.com/diagnostics/products/
The Avacta AffiDX SARS-CoV-2 Antigen Lateral Flow Test is now affiliated to The NHS National Microbiology Framework. Click here for more details.
Great find.
This bit is very interesting…..
Under the terms of the agreement, NorthStar will provide POINT with its electron accelerator-produced Ac-225 and POINT will use NorthStar’s Ac-225 in investigational studies of PNT2001, a next-generation Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) for non-metastatic castrate-sensitive prostate cancer (nmCSPC); PNT2004, a Fibroblast Activation Protein-a candidate with potential pan-cancer applications; and to advance its novel Tumor Microenvironment (TME) tumor-targeting technology platform.
Points TME platform uses the precision substrate, so point have seen enough so far to advance the program further. More clues perhaps that the very early data from AVA6000 is looking promising.
As the inventor of the Precision Chemistry I would imagine Tufts will be getting updated regularly on how the AVA6000 trial is progressing. Tufts carry out a large proportion of the development work for the pro drugs and the TMAC's and have a financial interest in their success. They will be showing a great deal of interest in how things are progressing at the Royal Marsden imo.
As one of the largest US medical schools its a great partner for Avacta to have. They have lots connections with lots of large pharma and will act as a "door opener" for the massive licence deals that lie ahead for the Precision and TMAC platforms. It really is some coup that Avacta pulled off getting an exclusive licence to the Precision chemistry. Of course it all needs to be proven in human, but the new director and scientific board members that have joined clearly see huge potential and nothing so far makes me think that everything isn't on track.
Now for the TMAC data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap6yoi6yQ64
3.48m in James Spicer speaks about approaches to treating lung cancer, any area he specializes in. Not hard to see why he was so keen to join the advisory board at Avacta. He will be very keen on the TMAC approach to treating cancer imo.
Would Avacta be recruiting and attracting so much top talent to its therapeutics division if early AVA6000 isn’t up to scratch…….I think not. Furthermore, something is clearly attracting these individuals to Avacta, which lets be honest is a very small UK biotech at present and has only just gone into the clinic with its 1st asset.
Everything that I’ve seen with the animal data from both the Affimer, Precision and TMAC programmes, shows that Avacta have massive potential to change how cancer is treated. I’m eagerly awaiting the TMAC data which is hopefully just a few weeks away now, no reason to think it’s going to anything but extraordinary.
Best of luck all.
This part of yesterday's RNS stood out for me and Fiona's involvement with the CRUK/AstraZeneca Alliance Laboratory.
Fiona has also gained broad experience during her career as a Consultant, providing scientific and strategic advice to biotechs, Not-for-Profit Organisations, and Venture Capitalists in UK, Europe, USA and Australia, including helping drive oncology strategy at the CRUK/AstraZeneca Alliance Laboratory.
A few snippets from their website.
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/funding-for-researchers/our-research-infrastructure/cruk-astrazeneca-antibody-alliance-laboratory
We collaborate with academic researchers on novel antibody discovery projects to accelerate delivery of therapies and diagnostics for cancer patients.
Formerly known as the CRUK-MedImmune Alliance Laboratory (CMAL), our standalone lab brings together Cancer Research UK’s cancer biology expertise with the world-class antibody engineering technology of AstraZeneca to support your antibody discovery.
https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/funding-for-researchers/our-research-infrastructure/cruk-astrazeneca-antibody-alliance-laboratory/our-scientific-capabilities
Targeted and immunotherapy approaches
Whether your novel idea is to directly target the tumour or to use an immunotherapy approach, we can help.
Working with the team at AstraZeneca, we can also develop antibody drug conjugates (ADC) to deliver a warhead or toxin to cancer cells and perform Fc engineering to increase or decrease antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity.
Avacta are working with ADC therapeutics who are heavily backed by AstraZeneca on conventual drug conjugates. They are also developing "next generation" drug conjugates namely TMAC's with Tufts University. I would imagine Avcata's therapeutic programmes are getting a lot of interest from AZ, the TMAC looks right up their alley.
GLA
I mentioned yesterday that whilst data from AVA6000 is months away there will be clues along the way that AVA6000 is working.
We are now almost certainly into the 2nd escalated dose now snd Big Al felt confident enough to do this interview. He sounds very confident to me and added with Mark Goldberg and Fiona McLaughlin‘s appointments and comments, early signs look very positive to me.
For all cancer patients out there is hope that Chemo therapy will finally becoming more tolerable with better outcomes.
We all want to see our investment do well, but the bigger picture of improved cancer treatment is the real prize.
Yes she joined in February as Head of Translational science.
It looks a great appointment and the critical part is she has extensive experience of takings drugs through multiple phases and to market, which her predecessor Amrik Basran seemed to lack.
I think Neil Bell has had a big hand to play in this appointment. He will want the best people in place to rapidly exploit the enormous potential of Avacta 2 world class platforms.
What a company Avacta is building:)
GLA
Whilst it has seemed like a quiet couple of months for Avacta, they have certainly been recruiting plenty of new talent in both divisions.
Juts a couple of the recent additions that stand out:
Paresh Patel
Technical Product Manager, Diagnostics at Avacta
Innovative Scientist with over 9 years’ experience in New Product Introduction gained within global organisations. Experienced in molecular biology and genomics assay/product development, JMP software to perform statistical analysis and design of experiments. A strong team player experienced in ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 design controls and internal QMS auditing.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paresh-patel-1bb4461a/
Melanie Munro
Senior Project manager
I have always been passionate about making a difference to people's lives, be it project managing exciting preclinical drug discovery programmes at GlaxoSmithKline or helping to develop new products at Abcam - high quality antibodies for life scientists to use in their research.
I enjoy managing projects, lending a calm collaborative approach and generating order out of chaos. I have been involved in some challenging complex global projects but always remain focussed and positive. I have a strong drive and a determination to obtain a successful outcome.
I also enjoy working with people, both leading functional teams as well as establishing successful matrix teams across organisations. I feel a great sense of achievement from seeing people develop into the best version of themselves.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniemunroprojectmanager/
Avacta clearly feeling very confident to be recruiting so heavily.
Thanks Soleboy that's really interesting to hear.
In one of the early presentations on AVA6000 Alistair Smith mentioned having data after just 12 weeks on whether AVA6000 is working in human. I actually think they dosed a few days prior to the RNS, just to check that nothing went majorly wrong before reporting to the market. So if they did dose in very late July then the 12 weeks would take us up to the end of September, but at the same time Avacta have told us end of the year which I'm happy to wait for.
It would not surprise me in the slightest if there has been huge interest in the Precision and TMAC platforms from large pharma. The concept of taking already approved drugs and making then safer and more efficacious must be so appealing to the big boys. I keep hearing form the trolls that AVA6000 is years away from getting to market, they are totally missing the point. The licence deals that Avacta can do (if they so wish) from the early data will be very substantial imo.
The TMAC platform is the jewel in the crown imo, if AVA6000 works in human it massively de-risks the concept. With Avacta and Tufts owning the general patent regardless of whether an Affimer or Antibody is used alongside the Precision chemistry in the Tmac, this alone could make Avacta one of the most sought after biotech's globally.
I just love the amount of shots on goal this amazing company has:)
No sorry guys that level of sleuthing is far beyond my limited skillset:)
I certainly cant see Avacta realising any top line data on AVA6000 until at least December. However I think it will be hard to hide any excitement over early findings during the business update later this month. Clues I would be looking out for is if Avacta plans to trigger an IND on the next pro drug, which Neil Bell confirmed they are looking to do in Q4, there is no point doing this if AVA600 isn't working. Release of the TMAC data, again if precision fails then the TMAC concept is dead so why release the data. Finally more talk about the wider precision pipeline and possible data on AVA3996 pro-velcade - again all needs AVA6000 to be successful.
For the record, I put a very high percentage on the precision technology working in human and have weighted my investment in Avacta accordingly. Nothing is guaranteed of course, but the animal is not marginal its black and white. Avacta and Tufts have done the experiments to ensure that only FAPa cleaves the substrate and the animal data both in AVA6000 and the early TMAC data backed up the lab findings. Point Biopharma clearly saw enough to commit early and pay an upfront and Avacta delayed the affimer lead programme to prioritise AVA6000.
Either way the day that RNS lands will be fireworks either way, I hope I'm right:)
Added to Alistair Smith saying they could tech transfer to the overseas manufactures in 6 - 8 weeks. We are now 10 weeks on from the business update, I just can’t see how TT to Abingdon isn’t completed. Combined with Avacta’s almost weird silence about AffiDX, it absolutely reeks of an NDA imo.
The casing shown in the link is exactly the same format that AffiDX uses. Therefore I would imagine the Ginoli machines at Abingdon are already tooled correctly to assemble AffiDX.
I’m with you Energy, I highly suspect TT with Abingdon is done……..so why the silence???
Top posts as usual Monkhood.
This whole obsession about having to target N protein is completely missing the point. Being able to specifically target the spike protein like Affimers can should be seen as a MAJOR advantage.
The performance of AffiDX speaks for itself.
GLA
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/national-horizons-centre_viralvectors-activity-6834101720759447553-lpMS/
Just to add a bit weight to the theory. Avacta being tagged in a post regarding viral vector manufacturing including purification systems. Some very big names mentioned there:)
https://www.biopharminternational.com/view/developing-cost-effective-accelerated-downstream-processes
Nice webinar with Astrea's Marc Hummersone senior Director, R & D regarding trends in purification and separations. No mention of Affimers but discusses approaches to viral vector purification, an area I suspect in which Affimers hold a lot of interest for Astrea. Clearly they were keen to secure exclusivity to the Affimers in the separations market and Marc is clearly very excited about their potential in this area.
"Im thrilled to inform you that Astrea have licensed Avacta’s Affimer reagent technology. This is fantastic news and provides a competitive advantage that only affimer technology can give in the bioseperation product market!"
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marc-hummersone-1989b911_astrea-licenses-affimer-reagent-tech-bioprocess-activity-6760558739964661760-R5A6/
I think the revenues coming out of this partnership will surprise a few.
I know right:)
I actually don’t care about securing a government contract as I believe the margins will be greater elsewhere. It’s just a gut feel I have that we are working closely with the government. For me the only attraction of it is the 30 million capacity and the P.R. benefit.
But yes…..money up front please Sajid:)