Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
One of the outstanding revelations at the AGM was the “superb” uptake in the Ovarian monotherapy cohort. If one of the other two cohort 2 patients is ovarian, you wouldn’t have to be Clueso to work out what may be driving the enthusiasm. GLA
Well, just to add my tuppence, they never confirmed the observation. “ This early observation requires further confirmation with subsequent scans”. So without a further RNS, they have not confirmed any response.
Isn’t the information material and non public? Presumably any patient has to sign non disclosure before going on a trial like this. The process in October was that Scancell updated the market and the posts arrived a few days later ie the information had already been made public. So similar here - the patient and Scancell are informed, Scancell decide whether to go public, if they do then the patient is free to post once the information is disseminated. I certainly wouldn’t expect an RNS on Monday though - it would be daft for Scancell to go public prior to the patient being informed.
Fantastic news for patients and scancell, imo. To quote LD at the AGM - ?We do not have an approved cancer vaccine out there, so there is a lot of cynicism that cancer vaccines can actually work?? I suspect that cynicism is rapidly vanishing, and those companies that passed on Scancell the first time will be having another think.
If there is a message for investors from this government policy and the constructive rhetoric from related medical organisations in recent weeks, it is that they sense a sea change may be coming, and they want to appear prescient and on the front foot. GLA
“Recruitment is going superbly well? people are loving this trial..? presumably on the basis that that the specialists are liking what they hear. The point that the monotherapy cohorts are filling faster than the keytruda combination, may also indicate the enthusiasm amongst specialists to find an alternative to PD inhibitors.
Thanks again for the recording Botski, and one comment you made which went a bit unnoticed was this.. “ Ottenmeiser once told LD he thought they were going to win a Nobel prize. “…. He might well know a thing or two:
Director of Clinical Research, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre
Professor of Immuno-Oncology, University of Liverpool
Visiting Professor, University of Southampton
Adjunct Professor, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, California, USA
European Society of Medical Oncology
Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians
American Society of Clinical Oncology
Cancer Immunotherapy Collaborative (Germany)
CIMT Immunoguiding Program steering group (European Collaborative)
European Academy for Tumor Immunology (EATI)
National Cancer Research Clinical Trials Melanoma Group
Editorial Roles:
Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy
Journal of Immunotherapy of Cancer
Immunotherapy Advances
From an investors pov, two key things have advanced re funding. 1) LD has explicitly stated BioNTech are “even more interested” in Moditope than TCR - first time they have been explicitly linked. 2) BioNTech’s cash position has moved from $2.5bn to $13.6bn in the space of a year. We know anyway the links between the two, because they worked together closely on the Grand Challenge. So if the moditope data keeps coming in as hoped, we now know they have at least one believer, and crucially that believer now has very deep pockets. ATB
“It will be the flip side. If this really is working there will be huge enthusiasm. We’ve had to go longer and deeper but when we get there it will be a bigger story because we will have achieved what nobody else has achieved…. a lot of people in this room are waiting for that moment to go out and shout about it, it’s just a little bit too soon.” GLA :)
Things that stand out:
1. LD sounds like she is only falling more in love with moditope, and she will know more about the data than we do. New description of the DTH responses as “lovely”.
2. BionTech more interested in the vaccine, than TCR
3. LD thinks she may have the “ holy grail of cancer antibodies “
For balance - those expecting a double digit upfront from Genmab likely to be disappointed. Cash runway still to Q124.
A bit of perspective. Genmab have likely just spent less than 1% of their net cash on the Scancell mab. I don’t think we are gonna be featuring much in the chats, though I’d like to be proven wrong..
As mentioned by bermuda and others, calculus appear to be selling. I imagine in the current environment they will be wary that many of their less well funded company investments may come calling for cash faster and in higher quantity than originally hoped ie calculus need liquidity. This would explain the muted reaction to an RNS which, as others have attested, is about as good as could be hoped at this stage. I’ve added.