ALA’s laser-like focus on INkT cell therapy; costs cut
Our biotech Investment Arovella Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:ALA) today announced that the closure of its Perth OroMist R&D facility is complete — cutting company expenditure by around $1.5M per year.
The closure of the OroMist R&D facility is inline with the company’s October 2022 strategic review which prioritises ALA’s focus on its iNKT cell platform to treat blood cancers and solid tumours (90% of all cancers).
ALA is just one of a handful of iNKT cell therapy companies globally, so we like that this decision will not only cut costs, but will allow for a “laser focus” on its iNKT cell platform, according to the CEO and MD Dr Michael Baker.
ALA is collaborating with ~$800M-capped ASX-listed Imugene to combine ALA’s iNKT cell treatment platform, ALA-101, with Imugene’s onCARlytics platform to test against solid tumours.
Today’s decision is supported by new data from ALA indicating that ALA-101 has the potential to be a novel ‘off the shelf’ cell therapy to treat leukemias and lymphomas.
This data became available when ALA made its major international conference debut in early-April, presenting at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) conference — the first and largest cancer research organisation dedicated to accelerating the conquest of cancer.
The data presented at the conference demonstrated that ALA’s iNKT cells (ALA-101) could be scaled up (~5,000 fold) while retaining functionality, which provides the company with a consistent product for clinical trials; and that the drug has shown efficacy in killing CD-19 tumour cells.
We covered that news in depth in our last Note which you can find here: ALA shows it can scale: Pathway towards an “off the shelf” cancer treatment
ALA’s decision to close its Perth OroMist R&D facility to focus on its iNKT cell therapy platform also aligns with the reason we Invested in the company, as per our Investment Memo:
