Scancell Holdings PLC. (SCNLF)

[fightfear]

I've been long on Scnacell for quite some time, and I've shifted all my funds there, despite promising myself never to be "all in" no mater how good the company looks. It's just one of those opportunities that don't come around very often. I may not find such a safe investment and at the same time a great potential in my lifetime again, so I broke that rule.
Funded till at the very least 2016 with a view to sell the business as soon as possible (I'd guess sometime within the next 2 years). I've met the BOD personally on number of occasions and I sleep well knowing my money is in their hands - just check out their CV's.

Don't be put off by the fact that it's on grays market - this is only a secondary listing to allow Americans and Canadians to buy more easily. The company is primarily listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Scancell's link to London Stock Exchange



Here's a good summary from another poster (from a different board). Worth a read even if you're not interested.
I have his permission to re-post elsewhere.


Scancell does have two cancer vaccine platforms, ImmunoBody and Moditope but both are immunotherapies. Both ImmunoBody and Moditope use cancer epitopes (tiny chemical markers found only in cancer) to immunize the patient against cancer - much like anti-viral vaccines use dead viruses. These tell tale epitopes are given to the immune system like a scent to a bloodhound to enable the immune system's killer T cells to hunt down cancer and destroy it.



IMMUNOBODY

At the moment cancer vaccines use either cancer antigens or the active bits of cancer antigens (epitopes) to generate large quantities of these killer T cells called CD8 T cells. CD8 T cells are found commonly in the human body but never in sufficient numbers to fight off cancer properly. Cancer vaccines give the immune system a big boost by generating large enough quantities of CD8 cells to make an impact on cancerous tissue. They literally eat away at tumours and if the vaccine is powerful enough, such as Scancell's ImmunoBody, the CD8 T cells will eradicate the tumours altogether.

Today's cancer vaccines also generate CD4 T cells which perform the roll of helper immune cells. CD4's help to swell the population of killer CD8's and help to make the environment around the tumour more conducive as a killing zone for CD8 T cells to get stuck in and chemically eat away the tumours with their enzymes. Merciless!

The main difference between Scancell's ImmunoBody vaccines and other anti-cancer vaccines is that they generate far more powerful killer CD8 T cell responses against tumours than any other vaccines in development.



MODITOPE

So we can see that today's cancer vaccines including Scancell's highly potent ImmunoBody vaccines stimulate the immune system to produce killer CD8 T cells to attack cancer and CD4 T cells to perform the roll of helpers to the CD8 cancer killing army. But this status quo has been suddenly altered through a remarkable discovery by Scancell's Prof. Durrant that changes CD4 T cells from helpers to direct cancer killing cells in their own right.

This was done by the discovery of a whole new class of cancer epitopes. These epitopes (unlike those used in ImmunoBody and other cancer vaccines) instead of generating killer CD8 T cells as might have been expected, generate CD4 T cells but not in their normal role as helper cells but as direct cancer killing cells. This change of roll can come about on occasion in nature but only a tiny number have been observed in certain rare diseases states. But what became known as Scancell's Moditope epitopes generated huge expanding populations of these rare killer cells which had the power to eradicate even the largest and most aggressive tumours. Professor Durrant said of this phenomenon that she had never come across such a powerful anti-tumour effect during the whole of her professional career.

Because Scancell's new and patented Moditope epitopes are the only way so far discovered of generating in a vaccine a usable quantity of these uniquely potent cancer killing CD4 T cells the company intends to offer Moditope via out-licensing to other vaccine companies and government agencies as well as developing Moditope vaccines themselves.



SOME KEY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE IMMUNOBODY AND MODITOPE VACCINES SCANCELL HAS UNDER DEVELOPMENT:

Apart from the fact that these two vaccine platforms generate two different kinds of killer T cells to fight off cancer (cytolytic [or cytotoxic] CD8 and cytolytic CD4 cells respectively) Scancell has also decided to deploy these two vaccine platforms in different ways.

ImmunoBody is currently being administered as a DNA biological program, that is, a form of biological software. This program is incorporated into a vaccine in the form of microscopic rings of DNA originally written and sequenced by Scancell's scientists. These tiny rings of DNA are then injected into immune cells beneath the skin while applying a weak electric current which opens the pores of these immune cells to admit the DNA.

The cells known as antigen presenting cells 'read' the DNA instructions and start to produce proteins and mini-proteins called peptides to Scancell's specific design. Y shape proteins are produced with peptides in the form of mimics of cancer epitopes fused to the arms of the Y: all manufactured from chemicals in these immune cells to Scancell's strict DNA instructions.

These cells then migrate to the lymph nodes to present the cancer epitope mimics either to CD8 cancer killing T cells or their CD4 helpers. The cancer killing CD8 cells are then able to sniff out the cancer and mount an attack against it.

Moditope epitopes can be used like this (by being produced by immune cells through programming with DNA) but Scancell has decided in its first Moditope vaccine to produce quantities of these especially modified Moditope epitopes in culture outside the patient and introduce them directly to the immune system by a process known as endogeny which I shall explain below. The Moditope epitopes being fragments of proteins are classified as peptides. Peptides are really mini-proteins which consist of only a few units rather than the hundreds of units that complete proteins such as cancer antigens consist of. Which is why this type of vaccine containing raw biological epitopes when attached to a carrier protein is called a peptide vaccine.

The carrier protein used tends to be something entirely alien to the immune system such as a protein extracted from a sea creature. This alien combo is enough to provoke immune cells to engulf it (endogeny) and after breaking it down, end up presenting the Moditope epitopes to the rare and super powerful cancer killing CD4 T cells which are unique to the Moditope discovery.

Both ImmunoBody and Moditope can be used in either DNA vaccines or in peptide vaccines. The Y shaped ImmunoBody molecules that carry cancer epitopes on their arms can be manufactured outside the body and introduced to the patient as a peptide vaccine. Likewise, as previously mentioned, the Moditope epitopes can be programmed for by a DNA vaccine and produced by antigen presenting cells for presentation to the ultra potent killer C4 T cells. Currently Scancell has no plans to produce an ImmunoBody peptide vaccine or conversely a Moditope DNA vaccine.




CANCERS CURRENTLY BEING TARGETED BY IMMUNOBODY AND MODITOPE

Scancell's pipeline of ImmunoBody vaccines consist of SCIB1(Scancell[SC] ImmunoBody[IB] -1) to fight the deadly skin cancer metastatic melanoma. There is also SCIB2 to fight lung cancer and a series of others in early development, including one to fight prostate cancer.

SCIB1 is currently in Phase 2 trials and has just been awarded the coveted Orphan Drug Designation by the FDA. The lung cancer vaccine SCIB2 has completed animal studies and is now ready for clinical trials. The company hopes to attract a partner to take this forward.

Scancell's first Moditope vaccine, Modi-1, to treat triple-negative breast, cervical and endometrial cancers is under way and is expected to begin human trials in 2016. The directors are planning to sell the company in the not too distant future so the responsibility of taking Modi-1 forward may fall to whoever buys Scancell.




UNIQUE FEATURES OF SCANCELL'S VACCINE PLATFORMS

I suppose one of the most striking features of ImmunoBody is that it is re-programmable. Indeed it can be rapidly reprogrammed to produce quick fire vaccines to treat any kind of cancer simply by reprogramming for a different cancer epitope to be produced by antigen presenting cells. In other words small alterations in ImmunoBody's DNA code produces a new vaccine to treat a different kind of cancer with considerable ease, or as Scancell says in their Admission to AIM document: "an ImmunoBody® `plug and play' epitope expression vector system has been developed which enables new vaccines to be generated in a matter of weeks."

When it comes to Moditope, all is unique. Scancell's Moditope discovery generates a new kind of super potent cancer killing immune cell known as a killer CD4 T cell. They don't exist in nature in usable quantities and until Moditope was discovered, vaccine scientists had no way of generating them. Moditope has been shown to generate huge quantities of these powerful cancer killers that destroy even the largest and most aggressive tumours without toxicity.

It should also be added that ImmunoBody as well as Moditope can eradicate tumours without toxicity.