Northland Capital Partners Deputy Head of Research Vadim Alexandre caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the Motif Bio Plc Iclaprim Phase III announcement (LON:MTFB)
Q1: We’re talking Motif Bio today, what was the key milestone achieved today by Motif Bio?
A1: The company announced this morning that they’ve produced supplies in terms of their Iclaprim which has been manufactured now for their upcoming Phase III trials, which are skin trials, and that’s a major milestone for the business. It’s actually a whole process that a company normally has to go through in terms of producing enough drug for these large trials so the company has met yet another milestone in terms of producing enough pharmaceutical grade, if you like, drug for these trials. This puts them on a timeline that is already a demanding timeline, that they themselves have set, now we have that much more confidence that they will meet this timeline which is that they expect to complete the trials by the end of 2017.
Q2: So has does this impact Motif’s clinical programme?
A2: So basically, what it does is essentially most pharmaceutical companies have to produce this drug almost effectively for a launch batch so Phase III are substantial trials with thousands of patients in them so you can imagine producing a pilot amount of drug is very different than producing a commercial launch batch essentially. So, how does it impact their clinical programme is that now that they’ve done it, they’re basically capable of rolling out the drug across clinical programmes. The reason for this and what’s most interesting is that the company actually acquired, when they listed on AIM earlier this year, with the listing came an acquisition when they acquired Iclaprim essentially, their lead antibiotic, they also acquired 600kg of active pharmaceutical ingredient which is the drug itself. What they’ve done now, what they’ve really achieved is that they’ve reprocessed part of that material, a substantial amount I understand, which allows them to now take this into the clinic, that’s a key point because it means that they can probably reprocess the full amount. Obviously, they may not produce the full 600kg, again there may be a loss of efficiency along the way, but nevertheless all that’s required for a Phase III trial, even though they’re substantial trials, is less than 2/3 kg of materials, they have 600 to start with. The key point being that they’ve done it and that means that they most likely can do it with the rest which means that on their clinical programmes they’re doing 2 Phase III trials for skin indication, which is the ones that will end in 2017, but there’s also a 2nd indication which is bacterial pneumonia and then there may be future indications. The beauty of this situation is that we now know that the company is capable of producing probably the full amount for all of those indications and for potential future indications as well. That is a substantial cost effective for the business and obviously its very time effective as well, they don’t actually have to go through the process again.
Q3: Brilliant news. So Motif Bio Plc are in a very good position at the moment then?
A3: Yes, absolutely. It’s a very very good announcement.
