General Meeting - Shareholder No.2's Account:
Following on from the my previous post which featured an account of Thursday's General Meeting by the LSE poster ciaskin, here is a second account by another shareholder who also attended, dragon101, consisting of two posts to LSE Scancell Chat. The first was posted Thursday evening and the second on Friday morning.
dragon101 arrives home after attending Scancell's General Meeting and posts this:
Meeting
Hi Everyone, it was great to go to the meeting today and get a feel for the BOD. I have to say, I feel very confident about the entire operation. Now the BOD mentioned there will be an investors day on the 1st October, so I suggest anyone who is genuinely interested in Scancell, take the time to attend.
Main points for me are as follows:
EIS will have very little bearing on the decision to sell. The goal is to create the maximum value for all shareholders.
Moditope is the jewel in the crown and according to Lindy works in " beautiful synergy" with the ImmunoBody platform and can target almost all cancers.
I will go through my notes tomorrow and post a more detailed report.
The following morning dragon101 has prepared his more detailed account and posts this:
Meeting Notes
Hi Everyone,
As promised, I have gone through my extended notes from the meeting and below I have summarised in my own words what was discussed:
After all the formal proceedings had been concluded, Dr. Richard Goodfellow (RG) and Prof. Lindy Durrant (LD) gave brief presentations with comments from the Chairman David Evans (DE).
Summary of RG Comments:
Richard talked about how ‘Cancer Immunotherapy’ has evolved over the years to become a headline act at the words biggest forum (ASCO)
Analysts have woken up to this with one leading Citigroup analyst suggesting the market could be worth up to 35 billion dollars.
The problem with current targeted cancer immunotherapy such as Dundreon’s Provenge) and Yervoy (Ipilimumab) are the huge costs and risk of serious side effects are possible, and the fact that for example with Ipilimumab that it’s difficult to predict which of the 5-10% of people will respond.
FDA have fast track approval for breakthrough treatments, potentially saving pharma years of development costs, and this could be possible for therapies like those being developed at Scancell.
Likely date will be 1st October for more in depth presentation and discussion on Moditope.
Moditope
RG then went on to talk about how the surprising discovery of Moditope led to a change in strategy and a discussion on how best to move forward. Three options were discussed:
1, Do Nothing
2, Spin out in to a new company vehicle
3, Raise funds through a placing
It was felt that option 2 would be too complicated; leaving this “very exciting discovery” on the shelf was not an option, so raising funds through a placement was deemed the best course of action.
RG could not say much more because the Moditope patent has yet to be published. This will be discussed in more detail at the investor’s day, which is likely to be held on the 1st October, where there will be more detailed presentations.
RG is still very excited by this technology and indicated that the additional funding along with phase 2 SC1B1 results and the Moditope development will give him fire power to enter into talks with potential buyers.
Summary of LD Comments:
Lindy then made a brief presentation. The key points were the “beautiful synergy between ImmunoBody and Moditope” and the fact she has identified Moditope epitopes which could work with virtually any Cancer.
Questions:
There were some interesting questions from the floor, in regards to the Frankfurt Video, SCIB2 development and the idea of selling multiple licences in the style of ARM holdings
RG was asked about the video and at this point, they had not made a decision about the future strategy for Moditope. It was always imagined that the first point of any potential sale would be with the release of the phase 2 SC1B1 data.
SCIB2 will not be developed further, this is due to Scancell having to prioritise and focus on bringing Moditope to clinical trial and extending the 8MG SCIB1 trials.
DE then confirmed that they have not been in any discussion with Pharma companies and shareholder value will be enhanced with the further investment in Moditope and probably selling the 2 platforms together would be the way to maximise value.
Phase 3 research is not likely as is not within the expertise of this company, and would require a different type of leadership. The strategy is not set in stone but he indicated he feels that is an incredibly exciting platform in its own right and that Moditope came out of that research as a chance discovery.
EIS will have little effect on the timing of selling. The BOD’s ultimate focus is to maximise value for all shareholders.
DE, finished the meeting by saying;
Ultimately they are still focused on the end game to crystallise value and sell, however this strategy is not set in stone and it may be that the company would consider an ARM Holdings type business model.
Scancell have never been so financially well placed and this has had the effect of giving Lindy and her team the greatest level of certainty that they have an opportunity to realise the potential of their research.
The BOD thanked shareholders for their continued support.
