Post by
jfm1330 on Aug 08, 2021 3:04pm
Starpharma
OK. Here is the company that I found yesterday and that shares many similarities with Thera. even though it's not a company working on PDCs. But other than that, there are many things that they do that Thera does, or will or should do. Here is the list of similarities
Both are from smaller countries, related to United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Market cap in USD, Thera (350 M$), Starpharma (370 M$)
Similar age: Thera founded in 1993, Starpharma founded in 1996
Both are working on infectious disease and oncology
In oncology, both claim to have a platform able to target cancer cells
In oncology, both claim to be able to concentrate chemotherapy drugs inside cancer cells
In oncology, both claim to be able to work with any chemotherapy drug
In oncology, both are in human trial with docetaxel, Thera in phase Ia, Starpharma in phase II
Maybe there are other similarities, but given that Starpharma is well ahead of Thera in cilinical trials in oncology and has poor market cap, I guess some here would say that Starpharma's management is also poor at communication and promotion....
I looked into Starpharma website, and it is worst than Thera's website, nonetheless, I found some informations there. In oncology it is hard to understand the details of their technology and how it really works. They call it dendrimer delivery system, and they claim it can target cancer cells, but I don't know how. They never talk about targeting a specific receptor, but at the same time they claim to acheive intracellular concentration of docetaxel, or other drugs, that is 45 to 70 times higher than docetaxel alone. They claim a modified phamacokinetic profile of docetaxel (lower C max of free docetaxel and higher AUC), which is what I expect for TH1902. They also say that they have very low neutropenia, all that in humans, out of a completed phase I. The phase I also yielded efficacy, some partial responses and many stable diseases. They also have preclinical data on mice similar to what Thera achieved.
So, with docetaxel, they already have or claim to have many of the things we hope TH1902 will be able to achieve in phase I and their market cap is similar to Thera. On the other hand, it provides some validation to the idea of increasing docetaxel concentration in cancer cells in advanced cancers. Can TH1902 beat that and show better efficacy? In phase II they also run a trial with their docetaxel-dendrimer + gemcitabine. So they are already at the combo trial stage. They are also working with their dendrimer on cabazitaxel (phase II) and SN38 (they call it Irinotecan, but in fact they work with the much more potent metabolite of irinotecan, called SN38). They are also in phase II with that.
https://www.starpharma.com/drug_delivery/dep_docetaxel
https://starpharma.com/news/339
https://www.starpharma.com/drug_delivery/dep_cabazitaxel
https://www.starpharma.com/drug_delivery/dep_irinotecan
https://www.starpharma.com/assets/uploads/2020-06/Starpharma%20AACR%20Poster%201716%20DEP%20docetaxel%20DEP%20cabazitaxel.pdf
https://www.starpharma.com/assets/uploads/2020-06/Starpharma%20AACR%20Poster%201715%20DEP%20irinotecan.pdf
So as you can see they are ahead of Thera by a good margin and they achieved some efficacy results. They are also doing what some here said Thera should not do, which is pushing combinations in human trials with many drugs, and even combo trial in phase II on top of that. Also they are already partnering their platform with big pharmas, like Astra Zeneca and Merck and other undiclosed companies. In one case they will attach their dendrimer + chemo drug to an ADC. That is complexing since why would you need an ADC if your dendrimer technology can target cancer cells by itself? Also, guess what? They are working with Lutetium 177 in preclinical with their dendrimer + a small molecule (nano body???) + Lu 177. This combo would target HER 2 recepror. They already have very good preclinical results on xenograft mice with that.
https://starpharma.com/assets/asxannouncements/210428%20Shareholder%20Newsletter.pdf
I concentrated my readings only on the oncology part of Starpharma, as I said, they also work on infectious diseases with anti-viral stuff. So as we can see, only with the the oncology part they are well ahead of Thera, and still, have a similar market cap. That is why I said in my initial message that this can be viewed as negative for Thera. I think Starpharma shows that "mild" efficacy results with TH1902 will not propel the stock price. We will need more than that. Starpharma is well ahead of Thera in their oncology program, with human trials on many drugs combinations, partnerships and working with ADC and radioisotopes in preclinical. This shows that a company of that size can run multiple things at the same time. That being said, there are reason to hope that SORT1+ will end up being a better approach than their dendrimer technology.
Thera got fast track at the preclinical stage, which Starpharma does not have in phase II. There is a reason for that and we can see it as validation that SORT1+ as a greater potential. Another thing that SORT1+ clearly has for itself is a clear target (sortilin) and a defined MOA., while in the case of Starpharma, the MOA is not explained in anything I found. Don't ask me how it targets cancer cells, I found nothing explaining it. There is also nothing about overcoming MDR resistance, or how they were able to determine that they can concentrate the drug 45 to 70 times more in cancer cells. They claim that without any explaination. Another thing that I found is that in phase I, they injected doses of their dendrimer-docetaxel entity at doses that are equivalent to 10 to 105 mg/m2 of docetaxel alone. So they were not able to really exceed the maximum tolerable dose of docetaxel alone, which is 100 mg/m2, while we think that Thera is now at twice the MTD of docetaxel alone (200 mg/m2 of docetaxel alone or 460 mg/m2 of TH1902). I don't understand why they did not go to a higher equivalent dose of docetaxel, since they claim to reduce neutropenia by a lot. Another thing is that Thera seems to be able to target more cancer types and they have the advantage of sortilin expression growth as the cancer advances to more aggressive stages.
The example of Starpharma is a very good one because even though they are not working on PDCs, thay have numerous similarities with Thera. Also, in my view, it allows to draw a line, or set a standard of what Thera will need to clearly beat if we are to see a much higher stock price in the relatively short term. It also shows that a company of that size can do many things at the same time, many things in human trials, combo trials, partnerships, and new preclinical stuff like working with ADC and Lu 177. I will continue to search and read about Starpharma, feel free to do the same and share any interesting fact.