$PMCB PharmaCyte Biotech Just Added Another All-Star to Its Roster (PMCB)
In business, who you know is as important as what you know. Good thing PharmaCyte Biotech (OTCQB:PMCB) seems to know all the right people, and is bringing them into the fold. Another big name was added to the team today.
When it's all said and done, success in the business world is more about people and less about products, technology, and marketing. Good people can take a mediocre (or even a bad) product and make is successful, while the wrong people can turn a great product or service into a flop. If you get a great product ANDS great people under one roof though, then look out - the bar's about to be raised.
It's a point worth making first just to underscore the fact that PharmaCyte Biotech (OTCQB:PMCB) is doing EVERYTHING right. It's making sure it has a great product - Cell in a Box - and also has great people on its team.... people that know not only how to develop a new biotechnology, but know what it takes to market that new technology and turn a concept into a profitable business. PMCB took a big step forward to that end today.
The Cell-in-a-Box technology, in simplest terms, is a means of placing thousands of live cells inside a capsule that's about the size of the head of a pin. The cells inside the capsule produce a P450 enzyme, which can activate an otherwise inactive form of ifosfamide to produce an anti-cancerous effect.
The upside to this approach is putting the drug "factory" right at the point of the tumor, maximizing efficacy with the minimum dose.
Ifosfamide in its active form is usually delivered intravenously and then activated in the liver. The process "works", but much of the drug doesn't make it to the pancreas. To deliver a dose big enough to make a dent in a pancreatic tumor, nasty side effects are almost a given. The Cell-in-a-Box approach circumvents this inefficient form of delivery by inserting encapsulated P450-producing cells very near the tumor itself, which means ifosfamide isn't activated until it's at or near the pancreatic tumor. This mean the bulk of the drug is delivered where it needs to be delivered, which in turn means less of the drug is necessary to produce a response. Less of a drug means fewer side effects.
More important, Pharmacyte Biotech has demonstrated measurable efficacy with this approach.
In a phase 1/2 trial examining the benefit of the Cell-in-a-Box delivery of ifosfamide versus the results gemcitabine would be able to achieve alone, the Pharmacyte approach improved the median survival timeframe from 28 to 44 weeks. Equally impressive is the fact that the number of one-year survivors increased from 18% to 36% of the study's patients.
While the technology is impressive and the concept is brilliant, the truly impressive aspect of this company are the people associated with it. The list includes:
Dr. Brian Salmons - PharmaCyte Biotech Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Brian Salmons received his Ph.D. in London and after research positions in the U.S.A., Switzerland and at the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany, he became the Scientific Director of the European biotech/vaccine company, Bavarian Nordic, and was involved in taking the company to IPO. During this time, Dr. Salmons co-invented the "Cell-in-a-Box(r)" live-cell encapsulation technology that was shown to be safe and efficacious in a Phase I/II clinical trial published in The Lancet. Dr Salmons is the author or co-author of over 120 peer reviewed scientific articles and inventor of 8 patent families.
Gerald W. Crabtree, Ph.D. - Chief Operating Officer and Director
One highlight of Dr. Crabtree's professional career was his tenure as Director of Project Planning and Management (Oncology and Immunology) at Bristol-Myers Squibb ("BMS") from 1990 to 1997. While at BMS, Dr. Crabtree established and directed a department that monitored and coordinated the development of all oncologic and immunologic drugs from initial discovery through regulatory approval within BMS and served as Project Manager for the development of the major anticancer agent, Taxol(r), the "number one" drug under development at BMS at that time. T
Dr. Matthias Lohr - Scientific Advisory Board Chairman
Dr. Lohr is a professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at the famed Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He has also served as Professor of Molecular Gastroenterology at the University of Heidelberg and Head of a division at the German Cancer Research Center.
The message becomes clear.... the company, and the technology, is attracting the world's best and brightest people. These advisory board members and management largely have their pick of places to work and be involved with, and they've chosen PharmaCyte Biotech. Another all-star chose PharmaCyte today. Dr. Manuel Hidalgo, one of Europe's leading clinical and laboratory investigators in the field of pancreatic cancer, has joined PharmaCyte Biotech's Scientific Advisory Board.
Dr. Hidalgo is a co-founder and Chairman of the international Pancreatic Cancer Research Team (PCRT) along with co-founder Dr. Daniel Von Hoff, the Chief Development Officer of Translational Drug Development. The PCRT is group of preeminent researchers dedicated to organizing and accelerating the clinical development of new agents for the treatment of patients with pancreatic cancer. Dr. Hidalgo has participated in the clinical development of more than 30 novel anticancer agents, including studies for the current gold standard for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer, the combination chemotherapy of gemcitabine and Abraxane(r). Dr. Hidalgo also led the early clinical trials of temsirolimus (Torisel(tm)), approved for use against advanced kidney cancer, and erlotinib (Tarceva(r)), approved for use against advanced non-small cell lung cancer as well against advanced pancreatic cancer when used in combination with gemcitabine.
That work history is significant.... especially the part about "has participated in the clinical development of more than 30 novel anticancer agents, including studies for the current gold standard for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer, the combination chemotherapy of gemcitabine and Abraxane." It matters, because those are the therapies PMCB is explicitly trying to outperform in its current Phase 2b study of Cell-in-a-Box delivery of ifosfamide. What better way to do that than ask one of the people who helped create the standard you're trying to top.
The fact that Dr. Hidalgo is a bit of a hero in the oncology world doesn't hurt either. By the nature of his work, he has to have an impressive rolodex that may come in handy in the future.
