SUDA Pharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:SUD) has formally adopted the name Arovella Therapeutics Limited following an Extraordinary General Meeting on October 14, 2021, where shareholders voted to approve all resolutions.
The name change has been processed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the ASX has been informed and the company will trade under the new ticker ALA from October 25, 2021.
Derived from the words “arrow” and “novella”, Arovella Therapeutics means to live up to its name with targeted, novel platforms for the treatment of human disease, especially cancer and conditions that affect the central nervous system.
“We are expanding our horizons; we wanted our name change to reflect that and reflect that we're working with different platforms to target disease,” Arovella managing director, Dr Michael Baker said in an interview with Proactive today.
“For us, it's thinking about ‘what do we stand for?’ And the number one thing is that we want to help patients live longer, healthier lives. It’s really all about having the patient at the forefront of our minds all the way through the journey.”
Emerging immuno-oncology
In mid-June this year, Arovella (then SUDA) signed a global, exclusive licence agreement with Imperial College London for a novel invariant Natural Killer T (iNKT) cell therapy platform.
Read: SUDA Pharmaceuticals licenses novel iNKT cell therapy platform from Imperial College London
A raft of similar immuno-oncological therapies have emerged in recent years, utilising and augmenting the body’s own immune system to more effectively penetrate and destroy cancerous cells.
The global Immuno-Oncology market is rapidly emerging, with market size projected to reach US$100 billion by 2027, from US$37.95 billion in 2020, at a compounding annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.9%.
“COVID-19 has shown how important dedicating resources and great people to achieve great things is, and it can be done. That's been huge for the healthcare sector, because it shows what great minds working together can do in a very short space of time, which is pretty remarkable,” Dr Baker commented.
iNKT cell therapy
The invariant Natural Killer T cell is an important immunoregulatory cell capable of rapidly producing large amounts of cytokines that influence and activate other immune cells. The broad functional scope of iNKT cells has placed them at the frontline of many kinds of natural immune responses.
The iNKT cell platform has significant scalability advantages over many other immune-based therapies, which require individual tailoring to a patient’s immune system and necessitate bespoke cell editing.
Instead, this therapy may be used off-the-shelf, meaning cells isolated from a single healthy donor and modified to enhance their activity against cancer can be frozen, stored, and administered to multiple patients when needed.
“These cells don't cause a negative immune response, it's very exciting. Just last week another company that works on iNKT-cells raised US$40 million and has a valuation of around US$400 million, so we're in a good spot,” Dr Baker continued.
"It's a great market to emerge into."