Some nice updates this week about the DLBCL trials. Once again reasonably solid results in a difficult environment. 71% of patients seeing clear benefits - with 64% reporting a 'complete response'. Thankfully showing reasonable safety profiles. They have clearly started a higher throughput of patients now and getting more confidence. They had 35 patients dosed in the trial at the data cut-off (around 3 months ago), so it is likely they have 35-45 patients enrolled now.
After so long on the ALL trials, it is nice to start seeing depth on other conditions. |
Yes I understand the market quite well. Currently available CAR-Ts are only currently licensed for childhood ALL and some adult B-cell lymphomas. There is another which will soon get a licence for some myelomas. It's not for solid tumours, as yet. The PD-1s and CTLA-4 cover those off from a immunotherapy point of view.
My comments on the hassle factor come from real clinicians treating patients with these haematological malignancies. |
It has largely focussed on late-stage unresponsive "difficult" cases admittedly, but they are also about to start testing ALL cancer by AUTOLUS using outpatient (i.e. not treated in permanent intensive care).
I do not think it will be useful for 100% of cancers, but it already has a limited application and this is likely to grow over time. Altering patient immune systems is not simple - but if the patient is dying, you can ethically consider CAR-T. |
I worry about the whole CAR-T space. It's not the panacea that was initially hyped and the logistics of delivering the therapy is proving too onerous for many providers... |
If Autolus is as good as expected, it should be getting very interesting by around April.
By that point they will have moderate P1/2 data on 5 cancer types, with 1x solid trial in phase 3 (ALL cancer) and 7 new cancer sub-types being initiated.
Autolus is wobbling around a bit, but the market still values it in excess of 600 million. So that's not bad, all things considered. |
Any projections for the end Sept NBV which will be announced before long? |
Autolus stock very depressed though.... hopefully this will pick up soon |
5 Autolus trials ongoing, 5+ more to start by end of 2021... cranking up a gear. |
 I missed this in September
“Syncona makes two new investments – Resolution Therapeutics and Neogene Therapeutics
Resolution Therapeutics
Following a collaboration agreement with the University of Edinburgh in 2018, Resolution has been founded by Syncona as a cell therapy company investigating the use of macrophages for the treatment of patients with end stage liver disease. In pre-clinical studies, macrophages have been well-documented as key agents of wound and injury repair in the liver, amongst other organs, and there is a growing body of evidence suggesting their use as therapeutic agents to treat cirrhosis of the liver caused by chronic liver diseases. Liver disease is a major burden on society, with 1-2 million people diagnosed with compensated liver cirrhosis in the US and EU5 per year. Current treatments, including lifestyle changes in the first instance, do not actively repair the liver, relying on early diagnosis before the onset of cirrhosis to be effective. There is therefore a strong unmet need for a regenerative therapy for patients with end stage liver disease.
Syncona has founded Resolution with a £26.8m commitment to a Series A financing, investing an initial first tranche of £0.4m to fund the formation of the team and intellectual property (IP) required to commence operations. The investment follows an earlier seed investment in 2018 of £1.4m which funded discovery work in the laboratory of Professor Stuart Forbes, a leading figure in the field of macrophages and liver regeneration and Professor of Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Syncona’s holding value in Resolution is £1.8m and, at the point full current commitments are invested, the company will have a 79% stake in Resolution. Martin Murphy, chief executive of Syncona Investment Management Limited, and Ed Hodgkin, partner, have joined the Resolution board as non-executive directors.
Neogene Therapeutics
Syncona has co-led the $110.0m Series A financing round of Neogene, with a commitment of $19.0m (£14.8m) alongside specialist investors including EcoR1, Jeito Capital, Vida Ventures, Bellco Capital, Two River, and TPG, of which the first tranche of $15.2m (£11.9m) has been invested. The investment is valued at cost. Neogene was founded in 2019 around the work of world-class founders, Dr Ton Schumacher and Dr Carsten Linnemann, and is developing an engineered cell therapy product for solid tumours based on a patient’s own neoantigens. The Series A financing is intended to fund non-clinical validation of the company’s proprietary tumour-specific T-cell receptor gene isolation platform and a future Phase I study. Elisa Petris, partner of Syncona Investment Management Limited, has taken up the role of non-executive director on the Neogene board.” |
I'm with you there acuere |
Been in these about 2/3 years now. Never can work out the catalyst for it going on a sustained fall or rise. With hindsight I could have built a decent stake by trading the peaks and troughs but Sod’s law says the time I sell at 260 plus it will go on a run to 300+ and never look back. Hopefully these rises will continue. |
i agree that with all this good news why no action on SYNC. It just does not respond to anything at present. |
Freeline announces supply agreement for haemophilia B program
Freeline Therapeutics Holdings plc (Nasdaq: FRLN) (the “Company”; or “Freeline̶1;), a clinical stage, fully-integrated, next generation, systemic, AAV-based gene therapy company with the ambition of transforming the lives of patients suffering from inherited systemic debilitating diseases, today announces their supply agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (“Thermo Fisher”).
This agreement secures dedicated production capacity and resources for Freeline from 2021 to 2027, inclusive. This will provide capacity for the planned Phase 2b/3 pivotal clinical trial and potential commercialisation of Freeline’s haemophilia B program, FLT180a, using the Company’s proprietary manufacturing platform and processes. |
All this good news, why is SYNC so meh? |
Gyroscope Therapeutics Limited, a clinical-stage retinal gene therapy company, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to GT005 for the treatment of geographic atrophy (GA) secondary to dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). GT005 is an investigational one-time AAV-based gene therapy that is delivered under the retina and is intended to slow the progression of GA that can lead to blindness. |
Ohhh, Autolus updated presentation with some nice new info on their website. Progress looks reasonable and getting numbers through the door now, 5 clinical trials now on the go on different cancer types. |
Hard to say, Autolus had some manufacturing challenges at the UK plant and had to modify the "open" to the "closed" process, that caused some inevitable delays & trial changes and definitely seemed to impact the price at the time. Since this time, the results have been publicly back on track.
I think it's a classic volatile share & it depends what timebase you use. I mean seriously, you can optimistically say the share price has tripled since March 2020, or say it is down 25% since July 2020. Both are accurate stats. |
Does anyone know what AUTO has dropped. Is there bad news or just the market. SYNC also v low and no jump to the 285 level suggested a few weeks ago with the new NAV. AUTO presenting at ESMO this month which should give more info on progress. |
Reading the Telegraph this morning I am assured that the future investment world belongs to pharmaceutical and Artificial Intelligence stocks. I happen to agree with them.
What better then, to grab a handful with SYNC |
It depends, Autolus is the major price driver here. It's fair to say many institutions have put a huge amount of money into Autolus. By 2022 they may have a saleable product - (was it adult ALL?). With the platform de-risked you can imagine how the MCAP will develop - but they do still have to demonstrate this, rather than just the theory. It seems like they will do it - but they do need to demonstrate volume and patient numbers in the Phase 3s.
After that, well Freeline is a crazy proposition. It is either worth nothing, or £30bn (IMO) and that is a really scary idea. How do you value that? I have no idea. The haemophilia trials seem to be going well - but is it commercial? Needs another 2 years to get a real feel where Freeline is going. |
Thanks so much for the explanation. I am a little new to this but trying to learn. Problem was my online broker had not updated the NAV so I missed that. Pity it has not produced a price uplift as yet. As always we must be patient with this one though I do believe strongly in its long term potential. |
The nav to end June (210.7p) was announced in the quarterly update on 10th August, since when the Freeline IPO brought a further uplift.
The main bit of the IPO (8.8m shares) is done and dusted, the only bit outstanding is the option as is common in the US for the brokers to subscribe for up to a further 1.3m shares, and they have 30 days from 6th August. As this is also at $18, not much incentive for buyers to pay this with the price now a bit below, though they did trade over $21 on the first day so they may have drawn down a few more then. |
Ok many thanks Tiger Blue. I had thought NAV was updated quarterly and last was March but I must be mistaken. Do you know when the Freeline IPO closes by the way. |
Thank you Greygrey. Having just given their quarterly update, Syncona won't issue another regular update on nav until the interim results to end Sept which last year came out on 21st November, so until then it's manual calculations based on the quoted stocks, exchange rates etc. The only exception would be where they do another funding round, when they will state the individual uplift (hopefully an uplift!) to their nav for the relevant company. |
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