February 25, 2015

Precision Medicine Boost Cancer Research

By John McCamant

John McCamant:  Sangamo (SGMO) is clearly a second generation gene therapy technology.  They can do a couple of different things than the first generation, but their technology is specifically it’s a rifled approach.

They can get right into the specific point within the genome and change one gene on or off, versus the first generation gene therapies that literally are shotgun and they use the virus—blast your body with the virus and the genetic information and see where it sticks—basically, Steve.

So, very particularly, second generation gene therapy technologies are very important, and vectors are also important in this space, as this is how you get more specificity into delivering the genetic information.  They are using non-viral vectors, which are safer, we believe, and also would potentially allow for re-treatment.

Phase II did an HIV therapeutic cure, we’ll get more of that data this year Sangamo, amongst many other Phase I programs and they have very interesting beta-thal, which is also being developed by Bluebird bio (BLUE), but the bigger subset, there is sickle cell disease, Steve, which is a very large market opportunity.

Steven Halpern:  Now finally, one stock that you just recently added to your portfolio is ZIOPHARM Oncology (ZIOP).  Could you tell us about that?

John McCamant:   Exactly, Steve. ZIOP probably fits the precision medicine profile better than anybody.  We believe that they are a clear second generation gene therapy cancer company.  (…read more)