Oxford's Scancell Holdings reports £3.2 million loss but encouraging business progress in interim results
Scancell Holdings plc, the Oxford-based developer of novel immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious disease, has reported a £3.2 million loss in its interim results for the 6 months ended 31 October 2022.
This is compared to a £3.2 million profit for the same period in 2021. The firm reported license fee payments of £5.3 million, coming largely from up-front payment receivable from biotech firm Genmab. In total, the group’s cash balance on 31 October was £24 million.
Scancell also provided an update on a number of its vaccine trials, including 14 patients enrolled and dosed in the expansion phase of its Modi-1 clinical trial (ModiFY). Cohort 3 of this trial also saw the the first dose given to a patient in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor, which blocks certain proteins binding with their partner proteins.
The firm also reported expansion of its SCIB1 Phase 2 combination trial, which led to an increase in its recruitment rate. It also agreed an in-license with Vaccitech plc to formulate and manufacture its Modi-2 product, with plans to initiate the first phase of the clinical study on this in the first half of 2023.
In antibodies, Scancell reported plans to begin clinical trials on two of its antibodies by 2024, with plans to start manufacturing on another during the first half of 2023.
As previously mentioned, a license agreement was signed with Glenmab, which could be worth as much as $624 million if fully developed.
Read more - Oxford Nanopore reports revenues of around £199M
John Chiplin has announced he will resign as Scancell Executive Chairman for personal reasons but is staying on for an interim period until a new Chair is appointed; Dr Richard Goodfellow stepped down as Board Director at the 2022 Annual General Meeting and Susan Clement Davies was appointed as Deputy Chair and independent Non-Executive Director & Chair of Audit Committee.
Professor Lindy Durrant, Chief Executive Officer at Scancell, commented: "We are pleased to report another period of progress for Scancell, including strong clinical and commercial developments.
“We have continued to advance our ModiFY Phase 1/2 trial for Modi-1 and the SCOPE Phase 2 trial for SCIB1 and expect to generate safety, immune and clinical response results during 2023. During the period, we also continued to progress our earlier stage pipeline having signed an in-licensing agreement with Vaccitech.
"It has been a defining period for our proprietary antibody platform as we have signed a licensing agreement for one of our anti-glycan mAbs with Genmab, providing strong validation of the platform and the Company's scientific approach.
“We remain one of only a few companies worldwide that has the capability to produce high affinity, humanised anti-glycan antibodies and continue to evaluate options and potential agreements for the Company's GlyMab® antibodies in order to provide further third-party validation, develop the business and generate revenues.
“We would like to thank our shareholders for their continued support over the past 6 months and look forward to updating the market on our future clinical and operational progress during 2023."
Read more - Tokamak Energy awarded DOE grant to test fusion power plant materials
