The following is a transcription of the above video, and The Market Online has edited it for clarity.
BioVaxys Technology Corp (CSE:BIOV) is a Canadian-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on improving patient lives with novel immunotherapies. CEO James Passin joins The Market Online to discuss the company’s business strategy, its recent acquisition, DPX – an immune-educating platform – and the company’s next steps.
TMO: Now, to get things started, can you walk us through BioVaxys business strategy and in particular, what do you anticipate gaining from the acquisition of IMV Inc. assets?
Passin: The acquisition of the IMV intellectual property positions BioVaxys at the forefront of biotechnology innovation. We now have a platform called DPX, which is an immune educating platform that has huge applications across a range of different diseases with the ability to package a broad range of antigens and not just very small things like mRNA but also virus-like particles, peptides, proteins, which really gives us the ability to not only develop our own pipeline of products but to collaborate with other pharma that would be interested in our delivery platform.
TMO: Now you touched a little bit on that DPX. Do you want to expand a little bit more on that?
Passin: DPX is an immune educating platform. It’s designed to develop a sustained and specific persistent immune response for patients with whether it’s cancer, infectious diseases, other immune modulated diseases. And what is unique about DPX is that its unique method of action allows for sustained activation in the immune system via uptake by antigen-presenting cells that deliver the antigens to the lymph node system as opposed to other types of lipid encapsulation where the cargo leaks out. That’s not the way that DPX is working.
TMO: Now, let’s move on from there. What are the expected impacts of the termination of the U.S. distribution agreement from Papilocare and Immunocaps on BioVaxys’ financial health and focus on Immunotherapeutic?
Passin: Papilocare is a fantastic asset. We know this because of its sales in the European Union. In terms of from the point of view of BioVaxys, we decided to go all in on immunotherapeutics to refocus on immunotherapeutics, do the IMV deal and divest everything that was unrelated to that new mission. Also, it became clear that the regulatory pathway of the FDA in the United States was slower than we anticipated when we originally did the license agreement.
TMO: Can you tell me, are there any other updates that you would like to share? What can you tell investors, James?
Passin: We’d surely be announcing collaboration with a private company and a major Canadian academic institution to develop a novel formulation at DPX that’s going to address a huge unmet medical need. We look to be disclosing more details.
I would say that also we have reached out and are now in touch with private investigators that were running DPX-related trials, various preclinical phase one trials that were suspended when the IMV stopped funding it. And we’ve had not only very positive feedback from these scientists, all of them want to continue with the research and to continue with the trial. So, we actually have some data that we think will eventually come out of this work that was already completed.
TMO: What can investors expect to see for the remainder of the year and even into the next year?
Passin: We’ve a major focus on a new and important indication that, as I mentioned before, we will continue to hire and recruit former IMV, people from IMV to come in one capacity to another to assist BioVaxys access with developing a DPX platform. We also have new data for DPX that we will present at a major conference later this year.
And I think we’re going to have news on continuing the DPX-Surmage study with Laval University. And also we’ve got a DPX study potentially with the Wexner School of Medicine at The Ohio State University. So, we should have excellent information on clinical progress and also the new data.
You can find Technologies on the CSE under the symbol BIOV or head to its website at biovaxys.com for more information.
Company shares were last trading at C$0.64.
Join the discussion: Find out what everybody’s saying about this stock on the Biovaxys Bullboard investor discussion forum, and check out the rest of Stockhouse’s stock forums and message boards.
The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. For full disclaimer information, please click here.