Re cost of production of SM6. The present cost of an IgM MAB is...

Re cost of production of SM6. The present cost of an IgM MAB is for sure much higher than an IgG MAB.

A primary reason for the present difference is that big biotech has been focussed on IgG production platforms. Production costs of IgG MABs have fallen somewhere around 80 to 90% since they first came on the scene.

Notwithstanding any natural advantages IgM may have as the body's first responder it was quickly put into the too hard basket whereas IgG was seen as the low hanging fruit and that is where the majority of R&D effort has focussed.

In the meantime lowly little PAB has been very persistently and successfully challenging the prevailing wisdom that IgM was "too hard".

At present IgM probably cost around 10 times as much to produce per therapuetic dose as IgG. No doubt cost reductions will be available with cell culture derived IgM MABs when big biotech brings it's R&D dollars to the problem. Feel free to substitute "Amgen" for "big biotech" in PAB's case if the Onyx trials go well.

That leads me on to the recent market sensitive Ann on "plantibodies". That "market sensitive" flag has been bugging me for the last week. The production platform is many years away from producing SM6 for human use so what are PABs management trying to say. Perhaps the message is that the technology to reduce IgM production costs by 90% is not so hard either!

Production of all the SM6 for Amgen trial is probably going to take between 6 to 9 months (maybe 3 to 4 batches to show consistency?). Expect a start date in late Q3/early Q4. Anything earlier will be a pleasant surprise.