Oxford BioMedica PLC (OXBDF)

[marcusl2]

Hamill explained more technical details about the collaboration between the two companies:

Oxford will manufacture several batches of a lentiviral vector used to deliver Novartis' CTL019 technology. This is an experimentat immunotherapy program Novartis recently licensed from the University of Pennsylvania. It is currently in Phase 1/2 trials to treat various B cell cancers (eg relapsed leukemia in children) and the approach uses patients' own T cells, which are removed and engineered using the Lentivector approach to recognise cancerous B cells more effectively. The cells are then re-infused into patients, where they now attack the cancer (an autologous treatment approach).

It appears to us that the University of Pennsylvania likely used Oxford's intellectual property in its early stage trials and that now it is progressing as a commercial program with Novartis, Oxford's intellectual property is locked in. Oxford will manufacture the engineered viruses for next Phase 2 trials of the program. Novartis purchased one of Dendreon's Provenge facilities in late 2012, which we assume is handling the next step, to treat patients autologous T calls with the engineered virus and grow them up. In the final step these are then put back into patients and are now engineered to recognise and remove cancerous B cells.

Some very promising early results have been seen with the program, including two complete responses published a fortnight ago in the New England Journal of Medicine.