hello everyone this is sage and welcome to the executive corner by calkine tv
and in today's show we have mr stephen yatomy clark the ceo and managing director of president
therapeutics we bring you the industry leaders successful business owners market and equity
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so in today's show like i said we have mr stephen yatomy clark who is the ceo
and managing director of president therapeutics now to give you some background
proceed therapeutics is involved in the universal carti and targeted therapies that are both
personalized medicine approaches that seek to improve patient outcomes and provide new tools
for clinicians in combating cancer so welcome stephen it's a pleasure e meeting you thank you
very much thank you for having me good to meet you too proceed therapeutics limited is working
into the exciting area of cancer research can you give a brief background of the company and
what does president stand for as well as what gives it an edge over its competitors yeah sure
so we're about personalizing cancer treatment to drive better outcomes for those patients and we
do it in two ways one with targeted therapies and that is seeking to switch off the very specific
drivers of that tumor the genetic drivers of that tumor that cause it to to replicate and
the other way we're doing it is with this new field called cell therapies which is looking to
enhance a patient's immune cells that's this is creating living medicines living cells that attack
the cancer and we have very unique technologies that no one has in in this personalized approach
thank you for your insights now car t cell therapy is an emerging space in australia
with only a handful of players active in this area how is president positioned in this market
well pleasingly we're well ahead of the curve and not just in australia but globally and just
stepping back a little bit what car t is for those who aren't aware is a way of taking a patient's
own immune cells this is a cancer patient you take their blood and isolate the immune
the immune cells that are responsible for fighting infection and instead of fighting
infection they are reprogrammed outside of the body to recognize and attack cancer and
that is a car t cell and they're grown up and and injected back into the patient so the patient's
getting a turbocharged version of their own immune cells and whilst this is a genuine revolution in
the history of human medicine because we've never seen responses like we have with this therapy
what i'd like to emphasize it is just the start so as we've seen with any new technology the first
iteration is revolutionary but it's also um just the beginning sort of like where vhs tapes were or
um like the iphone one that's currently where car t is at and what prescient is about is developing
next generation technologies in this rapidly evolving field that address the big problems
safety control flexibility all which are you know still key problems with current generation
technologies and we are seeking to address those and create next generation versions
that's going to take these vhs tapes and take them to netflix that's that's what we're about
great thanks for sharing that a president recently expanded its relationship with peter mack how is
the company progressing with the omni car program development yeah so this is the next generation
car t programs it's going very very well we've now got um soon to be three post docs
two post docs currently researchers full time with prescient and two full-time
research assistants this is all headed by our new director of scientific affairs and cell therapy
expert dr rebecca lim is driving this with um with urgency and and deep expertise
so we've designed and sourced and currently manufacturing all the components the cells the
binders team at peter mac and headed by rebecca is currently doing all the preparatory work necessary
for this ambitious work program so that they'll come together very very shortly and uh bottom
line is um we're on or ahead of schedule there so working at a frantic pace and can
you throw some light on the peter mac agreement focusing on cell therapy enhancement programs
and if possible can you also share any insights on the outcomes of the study so far i wish i could uh
this program is currently in stealth mode so for those that don't know so we've got omnicar which
is next generation car t and what the cell therapy enhancement program is in stealth mode is looking
to enhance current generation of car t's but at the same time it's also going to be relevant at
enhancing next generation um car t programs as well um and early signs are very encouraging on
this and we're really looking forward to sharing more as the data unfolds and we exit stealth mode
well we'll definitely be watching the space to find out more and moving on to the targeted
therapies by when can we see the pt x 100 and ptx 200 moving to the phase two studies
yeah with ptx 100 that's um that's all on track to conclude very shortly and we are hoping to
report on our top line safety results for the phase 1b basket study very very soon and that will
also give us an indication of next steps for that program as we head towards phase 2 or hopefully
fingers crossed even a registration study so the results on that are imminent with ptx 200 the aml
study is underway we just announced recently some progress on that escalating to the next cohort
at 45 milligrams per meter squared in a terrible type of blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia
and we're hoping that will that's on track to conclude later this year as well and we
are also exploring a new exciting indication for that drug as well which we haven't communicated
with the market yet but look forward to doing so soon hopefully any economic delays such as the
ones caused by the covert 19 pandemic in the last 12 months will not delay the results any further
could you highlight the near-term vision and goals of proceed therapeutics and also where would the
management like to see the company in the next one to two years please yes so it's good question
importantly i think of pressing in terms of three different um three different buckets if you like
of activity one is with advancing our targeted therapies which are in the clinic ptx 100 and 200
we've got our cell therapy enhancements currently um coming out of stealth mode
hopefully and then omni car which is the next generation car t programs and we're advancing
three really innovative and highly differentiated next generation car t programs and within that
time frame we actually hope to be in the clinic in at least two of those three programs which is
incredibly ambitious and will be a remarkable and significant achievement for the company
i think the take-home message here is that unlike some companies who have a single program or um
or only in clinical mode where you're in a black box of news flow for
the next uh you know period of time a year or two we've got a nice diverse pipeline of
early news mid news and late stage news in terms of clinical development so there'll be lots of
opportunity for value creation and engagement with the market is president exploring additional
collaboration and licensing opportunities to advance car t development at all we are
always well firstly we're we're conducting what our three programs in-house independently of of
anyone else so we stand on our own two feet there and we're not um dependent on um other people
to progress those that's a great position to be in but absolutely this is an enabling platform that
can be like the computer chip inside other people's computers so anyone else in car t
anyone else in even antibody development we've got a dog in that fight now with um with with omnica
so absolutely we are always um looking for those opportunities but you have to play the long game
with these parties they are very conservative and they want to take time to be familiar with
the science and track the progre progress of the programs but we are doing absolutely
all the things that we should be doing which is constant interactions with these people so that
they can see it unfold and build familiarity and confidence which is which is happening pleasingly
to that end we've uh we we have a full-time vp of business development alliances dr dan
shelley um and he's based in the u.s and is is full-time on business development to cover this
and that's especially important in this in the covet era where um where there's less travel it's
great to have someone on the ground in the biggest market in the world and i wish we had more time as
this is such an important project that you are developing further but we have to wind up now
are there any final thoughts you would like to share with our esteemed audience here at calkine
yeah just in summary i think it's a great time to be involved in prescient asx code ptx bottom line
is we've got lots of shots on goal we're not a one-trick pony we have a simple model we we source
our technology from the best and we work with the best so we've got technology underlying our
programs from yale university moffat cancer center oxford university university of pennsylvania
it's another ivy league uni we're well funded we have a great team and world-class collaborators
and most importantly we are actually genuinely at the forefront of this incredible wave
and we have many catalysts both in the short term and the medium term for value creation
and that was a fabulous show it was lovely chatting with you stephen and
thank you again for your time with that ice age will sign off for today and watch
this space for more until then as we say stay apprised and invest wise with calkine