To be honest, I am not sure if there was any new information at all. Got talking to Darren (what a fabulous bloke), MM (who was very happy to talk) and several others from VLA and elsewhere. Despite the lack of news, the meeting was very upbeat (and in my opinion genuinely so). Some of the words used by various people either from VLA or in the audience included amazing, extraordinary, powerful. Not without reason (even though they were simply opinions).
Some potentially unintelligible comments from some indecipherable notes. Indecipherable notes of a non-medic I should stress.
1/ Of great interest to Pharma (and probably FDA for that matter) were the facts that benefits of various trials seem to be -
a/ Long lasting. Was mentioned that chemo etc tends to have a one-off reduction in cancer after which cancer often grows again. With VLA we are looking at 1 year benefits at times, which is huge.
b/ Helping a higher % of patients than Checkpoint Inhibitors alone. Also higher than VLA alone of course.
c/ Showing lower adverse effects. This was discussed several times. View was that MAYBE this was simply VLA highlighting the cancer cells to CI drugs. Thus it did not affect the rest of the cells (or body generally). My interpretation of what was said.
Further comments -
2/ Particular interest in the fact that it had good results with patients with prior checkpoint therapy. Partly because these patients have already gone through CI therapy and potentially be therefore worse affected by cancer. More importantly though, these are patients who have no other realistic choices. To have a 37.5% response rate in these patients is maybe just as positive as the 100% DCR in Capra (with small numbers). Again, my interpretation.
3/ Fabulous news that for many of the patients who had injectable lesions, there were effects on un-injectable cancers (bladder).
4/ Re the combination trials, enrolments should speed up significantly when we are thorough the various dose-checking cohorts. What might well work in our favour in a big way is that for individual oncologists who know about VLA when sitting in front of patients, they may be saying ‘CI’s are the current best practice. However, there is a trial going on with VLA, which seems to both increase effectiveness and lower adverse effects.’ You would think a lot of patients would prefer the combo trial even though it is a trial.
5/ Should be remembered that (from memory – please check) no-one pulled out of the latest combo trial. For monotherapies for CI’s, adverse effects were much higher and there were drop-outs. On small numbers though, so we might just have had tougher patients of course (or just luck).
6/ In the opinion of some, there are no other company in Australia with the number of trials going that VLA do. Are there any with more trials world-wide?
7/ Probably the most important message was that they are not in any hurry to get offers at this stage. They made the point well that if there had been an offer 24 months ago, it would have been at a much lower than would even be contemplated now. IF the trend of results continue (and in my opinion why would it not)and offers we might expect in another 12 months should be multiples of what might be expected now. VAL are just concentrating of results.
8/ I had previously believed I would not want VLA to sell outright, but to license in order to get value for any cancers that may have not had a proven effect at the time of sale. I actually feel more positive whichever way they go now. Partly as they did mention you can always build into any agreement the condition that trials are run in other forms of cancers, etc.
Spoke to one fellow attendee who had a knowledge 14 times higher than mine (not connected to VLA) and his opinion was this would be the last AGM. When results come out mid-year of combo trial unless things really go off the rails there will be a transaction in his opinion. Only an opinion, and I am not certain I even want that, but you never know.
All is good.
Have a good day,
K
VLA Price at posting:
$1.18 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
