1/As promised & after reading $NTLA latest Q1 2022 financial report here is my analysis regarding @intelliatx latest corporate status. I have focused only on the main issues that I found to be the most interesting & relevant. #CRISPR#GeneEditing#BioTech#FinTwit#Genomics👇
2/NTLA-2001 is the most advanced In-Vivo #CRISPR/#Cas9#GeneEditing program in $NTLA portfolio & is aimed to treat Transthyretin Amyloidosis - (ATTR). NTLA-2001 could potentially halt & reverse the disease in a “one time” treatment by knocking out the TTR gene with a single dose
3/In February $NTLA has presented an updated clinical data from its Phase 1 study of NTLA-2001 which included 15 patients with ATTR amyloidosis. IMO NTLA-2001 readout looks promising & here is a summary that I wrote shortly after @intelliatx’s presentation of NTLA-2001👇
4/NTLA-2002 is aimed to knock out the KLKB1 gene in the #liver thus reducing total plasma kallikrein protein & activity, a key mediator of #HAE - hereditary #angioedema. In 12/1/21 $NTLA has dosed the 1ST patient & will publish interim data from the Phase 1/2 study in 2H of 2022.
5/Two more In-Vivo programs are $NTLA 3001 & 2003: NTLA-3001 is aimed for AATD-associated #Lung disease & IND will be filled during 2023. NTLA-2003 is aimed for AATD-associated #Liver disease & @intelliatx is advancing towards IND-enabling activities for this program as well.
6/NTLA-5001 is an autologous T-cell therapy aimed for the treatment of all genetic subtypes of #AML. In March @intelliatx announced that the first patient was dosed in its Phase 1/2a study & that @US_FDA has granted orphan drug designation to NTLA-5001 for the treatment of #AML👇
7/IMO the most important development was the designation of NTLA-6001 - an allogeneic CAR-T program for treating hematologic #cancer including Hodgkin #lymphoma (cHL). NTLA-6001 is the first program that was developed using @intelliatx’s proprietary cell engineering platform👇
9/As of 3/31/22 $NTLA had capital resources of $994.7M & R&D expenses of $133.1M. IMO although the cash burn has increased by $94M, @intelliatx cash position of $994M will enable it to both continue to develop its pipeline & to initiate additional acquisitions & collaborations.
10/Upcoming Milestones:
1.NTLA-2001 - ATTR:
ATTRv-PN arm - Phase 1 data in June 2022
ATTR-CM arm - Phase 1 data in 2H 2022
2.NTLA-2002 - HAE:
Phase 1/2 data in 2H 2022 3.NTLA-3001 - AATD:
File an IND in 2023
4.NTLA-5001 - AML:
Enrolment of patients in Phase 1/2a during 2022
11/@intelliatx is definitely an impressive & promising #GeneEditing company. Both $NTLA proprietary pipeline & its systematic strategy of collaborations & acquisitions are the key factors which defines $NTLA as a leading #CRISPR and #GeneEditing company.
on a personal note: one of my main interests in $NTLA was its collaboration with @SparingVision - aimed to develop #Ocular#GeneEditing platforms for the treatment of #IRDs. As Of Q1 22 no progress was published yet & I eagerly await to see what progress this agreement will bring
1/Here’s an excellent article - published in the recent @WIRED issue, by Nobel prize winner Jennifer Doudna about how AI & machine learning are amplifying the impact of CRISPR & Gene editing in all walks of life - medicine, agriculture, climate change & research landscape.🧵👇
2/Jennifer Doudna is an American biochemist who discovered CRISPR Cas9 as a Gene Editing tool & had received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Emmanuelle Charpentier for their discovery. She also founded several BioTech companies like $NTLA, $CRBU, Scribe, Mammoth & others.
3/According to Jennifer Doudna - 2025 will be a pivotal year in which the ever growing use of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning will amplify the effects and reach of CRISPR and Gene Editing in many aspects of our lives - curative medicines, agriculture & lab research.
1/🚨WOW! $SANA announced initial positive results from its first-in-human study of UP421 - an allogeneic primary islet Cell Therapy engineered with Sana’s proprietary hypoimmune (HIP) technology for patients with type 1 Diabetes, without the use of any immunosuppression $XBI 🧵👇
2/Type 1 diabetes is a chronic (life-long) autoimmune disease that prevents the patient’s pancreas from making Insulin - an important hormone that regulates the amount of glucose (sugar) in the blood. Type 1 diabetes affects both children and adults & requires daily management with insulin injections and blood sugar monitoring.
3/Type 1 Diabetes affects roughly 8.4M people worldwide. The number of patients is constantly rising and the prevalence of type 1 diabetes is expected to double over the next decade. Interestingly enough almost 80% of T1D patients are from high-income countries with insurance.
1/This great @WSJ’s 📊 shows how after spending tens of billions of dollars for a single BioTech company, big Pharma moguls such as $ABBV, $AZN, $BMY, $AMGN, $PFE & $VRTX have all shifted to acquiring smaller targets of >$5B - for both regulatory & financials reasons. $XBI 🧵👇
2/All 17 deals made by big Pharma during the first 6 months of ‘24 were $5B or less. During the same period last year, big Pharma made 9 deals, including 2 that were $10B or more. 9 of the 17 deals were for privately held companies, compared to 1 during the same period in 2023.
3/Last year’s big acquisitions were led by @pfizer’s $43B purchase of cancer biotech $SGEN ❤️👇. By contrast & to demonstrate how things have changed, the biggest deal so far in 2024 was @VertexPharma $4.9B purchase of Alpine Immune Sciences & its experimental kidney drug. $PFE
The biggest problem of Gene Editing & Gene therapy is delivery - how to deliver a genetic payload to the exact desired location. Here’s a great Infograph which shows which BioTech companies use Viral delivery methods (AAVs, LVs) compared to non-viral platforms (NLPs). $XBI
2/Must of the companies - as you can see in the graph m☝️- use a viral based delivery platform for Gene Therapy / Gene Editing treatments, mostly AAV - Adeno-Associated Virus based delivery. AAV is a naturally occurring virus being transformed into a delivery mechanism by replacing its viral DNA with new DNA, thus making it a precisely coded vector & it is no longer considered a virus, as most of its viral components have been replaced.
3/The main problem with AAV delivery system is that it is limited to the size of the payload which can fit into the virus vassal. It could also cause the patient an inflammatory response due to this external virus activity. This led to a search for a non-viral mechanism. $XBI
1/@nvelop_tx has presented its proprietary delivery system - DLVR-M, which has successfully demonstrated improved delivery of CRISPR, base editing & prime editing platforms to different human cell types. DLVR-M could be the key in overcoming the obstacle of CRISPR delivery. $XBI
2/Every Gene Therapy is combined from 2 components - the genetic payload which is the mechanism for fixing the genetic disease or the cure itself & a delivery vehicle which needs to deliver the “package” to a specific human tissue & location. Just Imagine a pickup truck & a box.
3/As of today the only approved delivery platform for Gene Therapy / Gene Editing is AAV - Adeno-Associated Virus based delivery. AAV is a naturally occurring virus being transformed into a delivery mechanism by replacing its viral DNA with new DNA thus making it a precisely coded vector & it is no longer considered a virus, as most of its viral components have been replaced
1/WOW! hC Bioscience announces its first ever tRNA-based program for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). hC is developing anticodon engineered tRNAs as a potential treatment for DMD patients with shortened & nonfunctional dystrophin due to premature termination codons (PTCs). $XBI
2/Duchenne is a severe progressive disease which rapidly worsening children’s muscle function often using a wheelchair by early adolescence & eventually needing artificial ventilation to breathe. DMD is caused by mutations to dystrophin that affect about 300,000 males worldwide & PTCs account for approximately 26% of cases.
3/A nonsense mutation or premature termination codons (PTCs) is an alteration in the genetic code that prematurely halts the synthesis of an essential protein. The resulting disorder is determined by which protein cannot be expressed in its entirety and is no longer functional, such as dystrophin in Duchenne