PharmaTelevision - Immunocore & Adaptimmune: Battling Cancer

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Video title: Immunocore & Adaptimmune: Battling Cancer

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James Noble, CEO of both Immunocore and Adaptimmune joined Fintan Walton at BioTrinity to talk through the separate business models the two companies have despite having been founded with the same platform and the same management. Although Immunocore is a new company it has ten years of research behind it and loyal investors who help to provide funding for the company until the desired big pharma partner is found. Adaptimmune's specialised cell therapy treatment of cancer will be in the clinic later in 2009 and will also be partnered once in clinical trials.

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History of the technology and origin of Immunocore

Fintan Walton:

Hello and welcome to PharmaVentures business review here at BioTrinity in Oxford. On this show I have James Noble who is CEO of a company called Immunocore which is based here in Oxford. Welcome to the show.

James Noble:

Thank you very much.

Fintan Walton:

James you are the CEO of a company called Immunocore and that company is Oxford based as I just said but it's technology, it's intellectual property comes out of another company which you are a CEO of, which is company called Avidex Limited and Avidex Limited was acquired few years ago by MediGene. Now this technology has been spun out of MediGene into this new company called Immunocore. So tell me " tell me that story because you know your " the actual technology itself originated within the University of Oxford and the -- the original Avidex Limited also had shareholders that backed Avidex Limited which are now with Immunocore so tell us the history of " of the technology and how it's got into Avidex Limited then moved into Immunocore?

James Noble:

Okay, so well Immunocore as you say is a new company is a new spin out from a German company called MediGene but actually the research goes back 10-years I first invested a tiny Rhudex might in 1999 into this company when it was still within the University of Oxford which is a spin out from the University Institute of molecular Medicine. So first become Avidex Limited , then Avidex Limited was sold to MediGene and then we have bought back the product that were come out to the University of Oxford in late 2008 we bought it back. So although it's a new company it's got 10 years of research and I'm pleased to say that people who bought it back were the original investors in Avidex Limited 10 years ago. They've seen the company grow, they saw the technology develop and I think it's now reached the stage where it seizes to be a technology and becomes a pipeline of products and that's the excitement of it and that's why they reinvested.

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James Noble

Chief Executive Officer

James Noble is CEO of Immunocore Limited. As the former CEO of Avidex Limited, Jameshas in-depth knowledge of Immunocore's mTCR technology as well as a wealth of prior experience in the international biotech community. Former CFO of British Biotech prior to leading Avidex for 7 years, James also sits as a non-executive director on the boards of GW Pharmaceuticals plc and Evolve Capital plc (both listed on AIM) and of Curagen Corporation (listed on NASDAQ) plus the privately held Axellis Limited. He is also CEO of Adaptimmune Limited.

Immunocore

Immunocore is a privately owned biotechnology company focused on the development of engineered monoclonalTcellreceptors (mTCRs) as the next evolutionary step after monoclonal antibodies. Unlike conventional monoclonal antibodies, Immunocore'smTCR are not restricted to targeting cells via their membrane proteins. Instead, mTCR use the power of the body's own immune surveillance system, the T-cell-receptor, as a means of targeting cells differentially expressing any protein, including intracellular ones. This platform technology opens up the ability of targeting cells based upon numerous known and well validated molecular targets unsuitable for monoclonal antibodies thus removing a key bottleneck to the future development of effective biological therapeutics. Immunocore is developing a broad platform of mTCR-based therapeutics for the treatment of a range of cancers, type I diabetes, and HIV. Adaptimmune Founded in July 2008, Adaptimmune is focused on the use of Tcelltherapy to treat cancersand infectious disease . It aims to utilize the body's own machinery " the T cell " to target and destroy cancerous or infected cells. Adaptimmune's mission is to take so-called "adoptive Tcelltherapy " to the next level by leveraging it's expertise in engineering high affinity Tcellreceptorproteins (TCRs) as a means of "supercharging" the strength of patient T cell responses. Adaptimmune holds an exclusive license to the use of Immunocore Ltd's (formerly Avidex Limited/MediGene) unique Tcellreceptorengineering technology for adoptive Tcelltherapy. It is aiming to exploit this unique capability in the development of targeted T cell therapy in cancer and infectious disease. Backed by private investors and located alongside Immunocore Ltd in it's Oxford facilities, Adaptimmune operates a virtual business model with a small, focused management team and strong academic collaborations for the conduct of research, preclinical and clinical studies in HIV and cancer.