---ADDS SHARE PRICE AND BROKER COMMENT---
Scancell Holdings (LON:SCLP) has recruited a top team lead its phase II study on its lead cancer vaccine SCIB1, which will be assessed in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor.
The principal investigator will be Dr Keith Flaherty, who is director of the Termeer Center for targeted therapy at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Joining him will be doctors Jennifer Wargo and Michael Davies, specialists respectively in surgical oncology and melanoma oncology at MD Anderson, part of the University of Texas.
Also coming on board are Dr Paul Chapman from Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York and Dr Rene Gonzalez from the University of Colorado.
Flaherty said: "Based on the scientific and translational research behind SCIB1, I believe there is a compelling case for further investigation in both the metastatic and adjuvant melanoma settings.
“Despite meaningful recent advances in the treatment of this disease there still remains a significant unmet medical need. I am very excited to be working with Scancell and my other colleagues in the investigator team to bring this innovative treatment to patients."
Scancell is at the cutting edge of a new arena of cancer medicine called immuno-oncology that uses the body’s immune system to combat the disease.
SCIB1 is programmed to seek out and kill microscopic metastatic cells that are carried by the bloodstream to seed around the body.
Even more clever, it is designed specifically to target melanoma.
The treatment, which uses electricity to stimulate cancer killing T-cells, allows the body to wipe out the seedlings, or at the very least keep them under control.
The trial will test whether the new wave of checkpoint inhibitors would work synergistically with SCIB1.
In layman’s terms, and I’m possibly over-simplifying things here, checkpoint inhibitors open the doors to cancer cells to allow the body’s immune system fight the disease.
Broker Panmure repeated a 'buy' on the shares and has a target price of 79p, which is over five times where they are today at 14.25p.
The broker says it is "mindful" of implied funding requirements for this phase II programme and has made no change, at this point, to its investment thesis.
Shares rose 4.59% to 14.25p.