Investors have plenty of exciting updates to look forward as PTX advances clinical trials and its world-leading OmniCAR research platform.

Clinical stage oncology company Prescient Therapeutics (ASX:PTX) updated the market with its half-year results on Friday, as it continues to build strong momentum across its clinical development pathway.

The interim report gave Prescient the opportunity to update the market on key advancements made in the half.

And as it heads into 2022, investors have plenty of announcements to get excited about across the company’s product suite.

Targeted therapy

During the December half, Prescient further advanced clinical trials for its two foundational assets – PTX-100 and PTX-200 – both proprietary drug treatments targeting different forms of cancer.

Prescient’s PTX-100 treatment acts as a single agent for cancers where Ras and RhoA mutations are prevalent – particularly common for pancreatic and colorectal cancers.

During H1, Prescient completed a trial with an expanded dose level of 2,000 mg/m, after the successful completion of a lower-dose trial.

Investigators continued to be encouraged by the safety levels of PTX-100 at higher doses, and also saw evidence of clinical activity in patients with T cell lymphomas, “with two patients experiencing partial responses”.

In addition, in an encouraging sign, some patients stayed on the therapy much longer than anticipated, which necesisiated at additional manufacturing run.

The study is now moving to an expanded cohort of patients with T cell lymphomas, and will commence imminently now that the new manufacturing run is completed.

For its PTX-200 treatment, Prescient successfully escalated dosing in a Phase 1b study for patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

In the latest cohort, patients were dosed at 35 mg/m2 levels with no significant toxicities observed. The study is now recruiting for the next dosing level at 45 mg/m2.

Prescient “looks forward to providing updates in coming quarters” on the development of its PTX-200 treatment, the company said.

CAR-T Therapies

Alongside its foundation treatments, Prescient has also attracted international attention with the development of its next-generation CAR-T platform, called OmniCAR, which seeks to overcome the safety and efficacy shortcomings of current CAR-T approaches, against a variety of different cancers. By doing so, OmniCAR aims to considerably increase the addressable market of these revolutionary therapies.

CAR-T (Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell) is a developing field of cancer treatment that takes the T-cells from a cancer patient and reprograms them as a personalised treatment that can detect and destroy cancer cells.

The goal of the group’s OmniCAR platform is to develop a treatment solution that combines the strengths of cancer-killing T-cells with the control and predicatability the clinicians require

During the period, Prescient made significant process in the pre-clinical development for each of its three OmniCar programs:

  • Acute myeloid leukemia (AML)
  • Her2+ solid tumours including breast, ovarian and gastric cancers; and
  • Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), an aggressive type of brain cancer.

The company presented pre-clinical data at the Cell & Gene Meeting on the Mesa in California, “a leading forum for the international medical and investment community focused on new cell therapies”.

“The new data, some of which Prescient believes to be world-first, outlined the key attributes of OmniCAR to generate CART cell therapies that can be controlled post-infusion; re-armed; and re-directed from one cancer antigen to another,” the company said.

Importantly, “dose-response cancer killing activity and high potency were demonstrated”, PTX added.

The company also showed that OmniCAR-T cells can be “re-armed” and continue to kill tumour cells, and can also be used to target multiple cancer pathogens.

World leading research

Prescient’s results at Mesa “generated interest from a wide range of experts in the international medical and cell therapy community who are beginning to appreciate the capabilities of OmniCAR”, the company said.

In line with that, the company continues to attract world-leading expert and researchers to join its push at the forefront of CAR-T technology.

In November, Prescient announced two key appointments to its scientific advisory board — Dr Marco Davila of the Moffitt Cancer Center and bioengineering expert Professor Andrew Tsourkas.

Dr Davila is a medical oncologist in the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplantation at the Moffitt Cancer Center – a world-leading cancer care and research hub based in Florida, USA.

Professor Tsourkas is a Professor of Bioengineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania.

He is a co-inventor of the patents developed at Penn and licensed by Prescient to form OmniCAR.

Tsourkas’ expertise “in the conjugation of proteins is key to the development of OmniCAR’s binders, which involves incorporating SpyTag into antibodies and other antigen-binding molecules”, Prescient said.

With its advance-stage clinical studies combined with a world leading CAR-T research program, Prescient has laid the groundwork to establish itself as one of Australia’s leading biotech companies on the world stage.

As it continues to update the market with more news flow in 2022, investors have an exciting opportunity to participate in a major medical research story with plenty of upside.

This article was developed in collaboration with Prescient Therapeutics, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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