Why analysts aren’t falling over each other trying to be the first to say that Dendreon’s share price will triple over the next year is beyond me. There will be no surprises with the FDA review, manufacturing inspections or the approval. The company has all of bases covered. Look, I know it usually pays to be cautious in biotech investing but if you’re not in soon, as in this Sept, than you’re missing the train. It’s obvious that demand is going to be off the charts. The company wouldn’t be spending money on three plants unless they had excellent data on market demand.
While all this may not be rocket science it does have some of the latest findings in the science of immunology supporting the principles behind the cassette technology. For instance…
These results suggest that it is now possible to rationally promote a peptide’s immunogenicity by optimizing the anchor residues that bind to the MHC class II pockets. Such modified peptides can be incorporated into protein vaccines where the peptides will maintain their immunodominance. These vaccines can thus be implemented confidently to expand host CD4T cells of the desired specificity. (Andrea J. Sant, et. al, ’08)
Supports the well validated, well characterized, engineered antigen design of the antigen delivery cassette.
Naive T cells can spend hours ‘sampling’ dendritic cells before making a stable conjugate with a single dendritic cell. It is the antigen ‘dose’ that determines how long this process takes. (Andrey S. Shaw, ’08)
Supports the single antigen design and the activation of a huge number of APCs in the Dendreon system.
After 2-3 days, DC pulsed with long peptides still activated T cells efficiently, while DC pulsed with short peptides failed to do so. Long-lasting presentation of the long peptides was, at least in part, due to a stored persistent pool of antigen, which was still available for loading on MHC class I molecules after several days of chase. These results show that the use of long synthetic peptides allows the efficient, long lasting, presentation of tumor antigens, suggesting that long peptides represent an interesting approach for active anti-tumor vaccination. (Amigorena, ’09)
Supports the basic principle behind the cassette technology. Ex vivo activated DCs pulsed with long synthetic peptide (the PAP used in Provenge is a long synthetic peptide).
Because the innate immune system is considered evolutionarily older than the adaptive immune system, NK cells bearing receptors that recognize MHC and MHC-like molecules may have arisen as a predecessor to T cells, which express clonally selected receptors for the recognition of a limitless antigen repertoire in the context of MHC. Alternatively, NK cells may have co-evolved with T cells. As an evolutionary bridge, NK cells might conceivably possess attributes of both innate and adaptive immunity, and we are only beginning to unearth characteristics of the latter. The categorization of NK cells within the immune system is beginning to undergo a paradigm shift, which will have major implications in our approach to vaccination strategies for the generation of immunological memory against pathogens. (Lanier, ’09)
A whole host of immune cells is exposed to the antigen cassette including NK cells. Dendreon recognizes the value of exposing NK cells to the activation process in a recent patent application.
As can be seen by this recent research Dendreon was way, way ahead of the game when it came to integrating cutting edge immunology into the antigen delivery cassette. Investors still have the opportunity to be way, way, way ahead of the rest of the market by establishing a significant position in Dendreon before the run up over the next year.
