Avid Bioservices Inc (CDMO)

[entdoc]

carboat, ASCO docs, like everyone else, are looking for hammers and not velvet gloves. The anti-PS platform continues to look very promising, and has a solid base in Bavituximab. What more needs to be said at ASCO. The information is there. It is not a cure. Bavi- was developed as a double-armed MAB vehicle to carry cytotoxins to a specific docking site on vascular endothelial cells, the inner lining cells of blood vessels which nourish cancers and allow them to grow. Bavituximab was originally an anti-angiogenesis MAB in the same category as Avastin, but with a different, exclusive docking site on membrane surface -PS. The idea was to target tumor vasculature. Something happened during development: Bavituximab without a payload was immunogenic, stimulating the body's immune system. What happened to loaded Bavi? Rumor has it that when one arm of Bavi is loaded with a small molecule, the other "available" arm cannot bind so readily or solidly to target. Again, this is my "understanding" only, but it is said that fully humanized Bavi, now "in production" does not have that issue for reasons more technical than the intent of this post. Therefore, for reasons of terrible financial squeeze, PPHM was forced to go with unarmed "naked" Bavi, and say to ASCO, "Isn't this interesting what an unarmed MAB can do when it plugs cell surface-PS receptors. AMAZING. Bavituximab is one of the many examples now extant of how using tumor immunology might prolong life.