Innovation Pharmaceuticals Inc (IPIX)

[frrol]

Interesting comment exchange on this SA article:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/2471575-the-antibiotic-resistance-triple-threat

Matija Snudrel> Mark, thanks for the good article. Never had this company [Soligenix] on my radar before, but will take a closer look. I just think you are little bit off with your judgement of Cellceutix and Prurisol. As a disclosure, I am in CTIX for brilacidin and Kevetrin, I am neutral on Prurisol. But Kevetrin is the MOST risky asset at CTIX. Also most exciting if it works. Trying to reactivate normal p53 is a holy grail of cancer science. Saying that company should hang their hopes to it and drop Prurisol despite positive mouse data is short sided. You are listing several unrelated reasons why Prurisol is a dud. For example, unclear mechanism of action. Who cares, if it works. People spend careers trying to discover mechanisms of action, but that does not define success of the drug. To this day, the exact mechanism of Herceptin (breast cancer Ab against Her2) is not fully understood and people work in the labs on it. Sure makes enough in $$$ sales. Sensitivity and potential life threat are a problem of MANY drugs, be it penicilin or statins. We are moving into an era where we better understand why certain people develop certain side effects and linking it with genetics, so from my experience and line of work, I can tell you that testing for genetic markers of sensitivity will become a standard. If you are a patient with psoriasis, you will get screened, tested and the therapy will be tailored to you. That does not mean that Prurisol will succeed in the clinical trial, just that your reasoning why this is risky company is less valid. If the drug works well in a decent number of patients and you can exclude the ones with risk of side effects, that's all what matters. The problem is, when you cannot find out who is at risk. Once you have decent mouse data, which Prurisol has, it's really all about clinical trial to prove it or not.
With Brilacidin, you are way underestimating intravenous infusion hurdles and downplaying the comfort of a mouth wash application. I.v. infusion come with its own set of side effects and infusion reactions. It also takes time, this is not a quick shot, infusion has to happen slowly to minimize side effects. More time that the cancer patient wants to spend in the hospital. They try to be here as little as possible, believe me. Plus having someone to stick you with a needle every time in addition to being radiated is NO FUN. If you go and ask cancer patients: hey, would you rather use a mouth wash or get an infusion needle, you will get a very different answer from what you provided, believe me. There is a reason that there are companies who base their business on developing pill versions of old i.v. drugs.
You can look at CTIX valuation as a plus, because they are probably closer to uplisiting to a major exchange than SNGX.
Overall, I agree SNGX is an interesting speculative play. But I disagree that one should pick one or the other because the smaller one is less risky (?). They are both super risky. But if CTIX makes brilacidin work, and is in a mouthwash formula, SNGX will have a very hard time to succeed with i.v. drug.

Author’s reply » I skipped Kevetrin mostly because I think it's extremely difficult to predict if it will work or not. I agree that if it does work, it could be a big deal.

I disagree on the M of A question. What if abavacir works to ameliorate psoriasis in mice by binding to a protein that only has 50% homology to the human version? It won't translate. I have worked enough with mouse models to know that very few therapies actually do translate so you can build an entire program on mouse data, but that's not a place I want to invest money. If I'm investing, I want to know the M of A so I can have confidence it will translate to humans. And don't forget the HLA issue.

On IV versus mouth wash, the SGX94 infusion is 4 minutes so this is not much of a burden. It's not like a cancer drug that needs to be infused over an hour and has risk of hypersensitivity. I get that cancer is tough, but imagine you're exhausted from the radiation, do you want to have to set an alarm 3X/day to remind you to do your mouth rinse, everyday for 2 months? Honestly, I would prefer to get the infusion and forget about it.

It probably will come down to personal preference if both drugs are effective and approved, but remember Soligenix will be first to market since they could be planning phase 3 when Cellceutix is starting phase 2. Also not sure if Cellceutix has fast track designation like Soligenix does.

Again, I like brilacidin and think it is an incredibly promising drug. I just can't get excited about the other 2 molecules. Thanks for the comment. We'll see what happens...