Scancell Holdings PLC. (SCNLF)

[Gift_Horse]

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I think the numbers are about anticipated developments.

The intension is to offer the company up for sale within the next couple of years and there is a widespread belief that Scancell will fetch big numbers when this happens.

The directors have indicated during an investor presentation in March 2012 that they expect to receive about $1 billion dollars for their SCIB1 melanoma vaccine alone. SCIB1 will have completed Phase I/II trials when the company goes under the hammer. (Compare Johnson & Johnson's June 17th $1 billion acquisition of Aragon Pharmaceuticals for their lead drug to treat prostate cancer, just completing Phase I/II trials.)

But it is important to bear in mind that SCIB1 (ScanCell ImmunoBody 1) is a showcase vaccine for Scancell's re-programmable DNA vaccine platform, ImmunoBody, which will be included in the sale of the company. ImmunoBody allows whoever buys Scancell to produce new 'quick fire' vaccines in weeks to treat any kind of cancer by making small alterations in the vaccine's DNA code. This technology is fully patented and is unique to Scancell.

Scancell has already pre-prepared a second ImmunoBody vaccine, SCIB2, which has completed successful animal studies and is now ready for human trials. SCIB2 is designed primarily to treat lung cancer but is also able to treat oesophageal, liver, gastric, prostate, ovarian and bladder cancers without re-programming.

Moditope™
In addition to Scancell's re-programmable DNA vaccine the company has also developed a second, equally unique, vaccine technology called Moditope.

Up to now scientists using the cell mediated part of the adaptive immune system to fight cancer and viruses have only been able to draw on the assistance of CD8 Killer T Cells to kill cancer and various viral pathogens. But it has long been suspected that CD4 T Cells which normally function as helper cells to aid CD8 Killer T Cells to multiply and work better are able to switch roles and turn into cancer and virus killing cells in their own right. It is believed, for example, that in those instances where a person contracts HIV but proves naturally resistant to the virus and remains AIDs free, it is because these rare CD4 cancer and virus killing cells are produced naturally in those particular individuals.

On January 20th 2013 a research team led by the La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology announced it had discovered the mechanism that nature sometimes uses to enable CD4 Helper T Cells to assume this more aggressive role of Killer T Cells in mounting an immune attack against viruses and cancer but have as yet no practical method to artificially stimulate usable populations of CD4 Killer T Cells in patients. Although published in January of this year the La Jolla team's work was peer reviewed prior to August last year, so when their scientific paper was written they would have been unaware of the new breakthrough discovery and invention of Professor Lindy Durrant, Joint CEO of Scancell Holdings.

On 15th August 2012 Scancell announced the development of a new platform technology, Moditope, that stimulates the production of Killer CD4 T Cells with powerful anti-tumor activity and that the Directors believed "this new discovery could have a profound effect on the way that cancer vaccines are developed."

What Professor Durrant's team had done at Scancell was to find a way of modifying epitopes of cancer and viral antigens (those parts of the cancer and virus recognized by the immune system and incorporated routinely in vaccines to fight these conditions). These specially modified epitopes (Moditopes) were discovered to artificially generate CD4 Killer T Cells in mice and in the tissue of cancer patients. It is now the intention of Scancell to develop a showcase vaccine to display the superior cancer killing capability of these new vaccine components and at the same time license them out for use by other vaccine manufacturers and government agencies to enable their existing vaccines to function with greater potency.

Future valuation of Scancell on sale
Scancell's Directors have recently suggested that instead of spinning Moditope out as a separate company (which they were originally expected to do) they might include this extremely valuable technology in the sale of Scancell as well. If this goes ahead it would add a vast and incalculable sum of money to the likely offer price for Scancell.

Without Moditope, valuations among investors of Scancell on sale range from $5 to an incredible $13 per share! But if Moditope is to be added into the mix then I would expect these figures would receive a sharp upward correction.

Stimulation of killer CD4 T cells with potent anti-tumour activity