PHASE3

Moderna and BioNTech are getting all of the attention with their phase 3 clinical trials for lung cancer and melanoma.  But someone else is already further ahead.
 
French company Ose Immunotherapeutics has already done a phase 3 study for non small cell lung cancer, and if the final run of work confirms that data it will have the first cancer vaccine on the market in 2028.

And it's results like those emerging from Ose that are inspiring investors to start getting set for a cancer vaxxed future. 

In our final episode of VAXXED we feature OneVentures partner Dr. Jeannie Joughin and Ose Immunotherapeutics CEO Nicolas Poirier. 

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

Cancer vaccines are an area that anyone who is anyone is getting into, but it's a field  led largely by academics, not-for–profits, and specialist researchers. So this week we go back to basics - science that is. 

Australia may not have many cancer vaccine biotechs but – as we pointed out in episode one with the godfather of cancer vaccines, professor Dr Ian Frazer – it has heft in its research. 

Dr Seth Cheetham from the University of Queensland's Base Facility, a specialist mRNA manufacturing lab, explains why they went from COVID19 to cancer. 

And Dr Shalin Naik from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research explains why he's bringing back a spectre of the past, and why he believes it could be the winner of this biotechnology cage match. 

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

In some ways, cancer vaccines are a history of hype and hope, over success. But that hasn't stopped people from trying. In 2024, biotech CEOs are hoping that this time, it's different.

Research houses are predicting significant market growth come 2030, mRNA vaccines are making it through to phase three clinical trials for the first time, and there are exciting new discoveries in technologies that have already been tried and tossed on the rubbish pile.

So we asked two life sciences analysts about what they think of this market and whether this time, it really will be different. With Phase III regular Chris Kallos and Pitt Street Research cofounder Stuart Roberts.

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

Cancer vaccines are a very niche section of cancer treatments. But two companies in Australia – the only two so far to go public with their work in this arena –are working on an even niche area within this. And one says their work is not a vaccine. The other does. 

So what gives? Well it depends on what you want to focus on: the deadly infectious nature of an oncolytic virus that bursts tumour cells from the inside, or the resulting immune memory that can fight that cancer as well as others that look similar. 

We speak with Imugene CEO and managing director Leslie Chong and ImmVirX founder Dr Malcolm McColl about why they think that finally the time has come for this underloved field and what they plan to do with their science if they can prove it up. 

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

Cancer vaccines started out as prevention. Think Gardasil for cervical and oral cancers caused by HPV, and the hepatitis B vaccine for liver cancer.

But today the science has moved on, to therapy vaccines. Vaccines that take immune cells and "rub their little noses in the antigen" - the substance that forces the body to sit up and take notice of a foreign invader or unusual activity.

Clinical trials abound, by some of the heavy hitters in mRNA and pharmaceuticals, but nothing yet has been commercialised. Wilsons Advisory senior equity analyst Dr Shane Storey reckons we're five years away from a vaccine from the most-likely candidate of mRNA.

In this episode we talk to the coinventor of the first smash hit in cancer vaccines, Gardasil, professor Dr Ian Frazer, and Shane about where the field has come from, and where it's going. 

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

Drone-deliveries of radioactive medicines and diagnostics to Australia's far-flung towns. Radiopharmaceuticals matched with genetic information to tailor precisely the right dose and isotope to a person's cancer. Pan-cancer drugs that fix many tumours, not just one. Miniature particle accelerators. 

These are the hopes, dreams and expectations we canvas in our last episode on radiopharmaceutical 'theranostics', the old-now-new cancer technology that is sweeping the globe and capturing imaginations in the world of biotech. 

In the final episode of our series NUKED, we speak with Novartis Australia and New Zealand country manager Matt Zeller, Wilsons Advisory equity analyst Dr Melissa Benson, and Cyclotek partnerships and innovation manager Sam Graf about what is happening now to advance this modality into the coming years, and what the distant future might hold.

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

The rule of thumb in biotech is that it costs around $1 billion to bring a new therapy from lab to market. Protecting that investment is the patent system. But what if part of your product is not made by your contract manufacturer, but by the people who are giving it to patients? Ie, their doctors.

We explore an example in Australia where this push-pull when the years and money required to develop a groundbreaking new therapy goes up against medical professionals' desire to help their patients.

And we also take a look at what the future might hold, based on what people are protecting today.

In episode 5 of NUKED we speak with FB Rice patent attorneys, senior associates Brittany Ashton and David Herman about what they're seeing in the tea leaves of patent application filings.

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

Can Australia create a mine to lab to bedside production line for radiopharmaceutical medicine? It has the reactor, biotechs and the hospitals to do that last two, and even has a growing pool of expertise to run these. 

What it doesn't have, yet, is many advanced manufacturers to do the first bits, the critical parts such as sifting through old mine tailings for precursor materials and making nuclear isotopes for industry use, such as clinical trials. 

In episode 4 of NUKED we speak with entX managing director Bryn Jones and Cyclowest head of production Dr Jacquie Cawthray about whether Australia has the 'it' factor to go it alone. 

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

The question we are dancing around in episode 3 of NUKED is whether locking down isotopes supply chains are really the only way to play the radiopharmaceutical game.

We ask Clarity Pharmaceutical executive chair Alan Taylor and Radiopharm Theranostics executive chair Paul Hopper how their companies are instead owning the IP, or banking a portfolio of IP licences, to create the kind of economic moat that others are pursuing via isotope supply chains. 

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.

In early 2023, one of the first two really big radiopharmaceutical drugs ran into a problem.  Novartis' prostate cancer therapy Pluvicto, released only the year before, was suddenly in short supply, snarling up just in time treatment schedules. 

In 2024 the supply chain problem is with the isotope Actinium 225, which *everyone* wants for clinical trials. RayzeBio has been a very famous victim, delaying a clinical trial because of the shortages. 

In episode 2 of NUKED we explore where the nukes come from, and how biotechs large and small get their hands on them. 

With GlyTherix CEO Dr Brad Walsh and Telix Pharmaceuticals CEO Dr Chris Behrenbruch, we look at a potential new front in the US-China tariff war, the Russia question, and how an early stage biotech and one with a product in the market organises its nuclear material supplies. 

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Produced by Rachel Williamson and Charis Palmer. Music and effect credits to Ziso, Inspector J, Seth Parson and Boom Library.