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Imugene takes a lead in cancer immunotherapies treatment
By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>
IMAGINE an Australian listed biotech company – now making strong inroads in cancer treatment – that will attract the interests of US Big Pharma companies.
This is what Imugene is doing.
The CEO and managing director of Imugene, Leslie Chong said the company was developing a number of immunotherapy treatments aimed at prolonging the survival of cancer patients.
The Allo-CAR T cell therapy for lymphoma patients is soon to start the final phase before it goes on the market. 
Imugene is also developing oncolytic viruses (OV’s) which target cancers.
“This is a friendly virus, it kills off your tumours,” Ms Chong told Talking Business.
“We have roughly 45 patients on this study that proves that our virus infects so many tumour cells.
“And then we have another product called Oncarlytics. This is another means of bringing this fantastic result in blood cancers now into solid tumours that up something like 90 percent of cancer types.
“They’re all about waking up your immune system so that it does what it’s supposed to do – and that is to clean off your cancer.”
Focus on digestive cavity cancers
Ms Chong said the cancers the company was dealing with were all “pretty much in the digestive cavity” including bowel cancers and bowel tract cancers. It also dealt with colorectal cancers and it had treated breast cancer patients.
“You name it, all levels of solid tumours,” she said.
“I’m really proud to say that every platform product that we’ve had has led to a complete response and some going on to three and a half years of remission,” Ms Chong said.
Compliance as an ASX company is not a problem. Imugene already complies with all the regulations surrounding biotech companies in Australia. ASX rules are just another layer of compliance. It’s nothing new for the team at Imugene.
“Developing cancer drug medication comes with the rigour of the regulatory, be it the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration), the TGA (Australian Therapeutics Good Administration),” Ms Chong said.
“We are probably governed by an higher governmental structure than the ASX so it’s fairly easy for us to comply.
“All of us (Imugene staff and leadership team) have been at bigger pharmas and biotech companies that are governed by so many regulatory bodies.
“Good laboratory practices to good clinical practices, these are all ordained by the government in terms of treating human beings, which should be there so we are already compliant in so many ways,”
Imugene products close to market-ready
Ms Chong said the company was well on the way to bringing its products to market. 
She said the views of Australian investors to biotech companies like Imugene were starting to change.
“People are starting to wake to the fact that could be a speculative market. However, we have been funded well and people have made money from the company,” she said.
Ms Chong said the next two years would be transformational.
“I think in the next two years we’re going to see a lot of excitement,” she said.
“Our Allo-CAR T that I spoke of earlier, that is currently in a confirmational study to go to a registrational process.
“That I would consider to be in late-stage development”.
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness
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