James Noble, CEO of both Immunocore and Adaptimmune joined Fintan Walton at BioTrinity to talk through the separate business models the two companies have despite having been founded with the same platform and the same management. Although Immunocore is a new company it has ten years of research behind it and loyal investors who help to provide funding for the company until the desired big pharma partner is found. Adaptimmune's specialised cell therapy treatment of cancer will be in the clinic later in 2009 and will also be partnered once in clinical trials.

James Noble
CEO
Immunocore Ltd

James Noble is CEO of Immunocore Limited. As the former CEO of Avidex Limited, James has in-depth knowledge of Immunocore’s mTCR technology as well as a wealth of prior experience in the international biotech community. Former CFO of British Biotech prior to leading Avidex for 7 years, James also sits as a non-executive director on the boards of GW Pharmaceuticals plc and Evolve Capital plc (both listed on AIM) and of Curagen Corporation (listed on NASDAQ) plus the privately held Axellis Limited. He is also CEO of Adaptimmune Limited.

Immunocore

Immunocore is a privately owned biotechnology company focused on the development of engineered monoclonal T-cell Receptors (mTCRs) as the next evolutionary step after monoclonal antibodies. Unlike conventional monoclonal antibodies, Immunocore’s mTCRs are not restricted to targeting cells via their membrane proteins. Instead, mTCRs use the power of the body’s own immune surveillance system, the T-Cell Receptor, as a means of targeting cells differentially expressing any protein, including intracellular ones. This platform technology opens up the ability of targeting cells based upon numerous known and well validated molecular targets unsuitable for monoclonal antibodies, thus removing a key bottleneck to the future development of effective biological therapeutics. Immunocore is developing a broad platform of mTCR-based therapeutics for the treatment of a range of cancers, type I diabetes and HIV.

Adaptimmune

Founded in July 2008, Adaptimmune is focused on the use of T cell therapy to treat cancer and infectious disease. It aims to utilise the body’s own machinery – the T cell – to target and destroy cancerous or infected cells. Adaptimmune’s mission is to take so-called “adoptive T cell therapy” to the next level by leveraging its expertise in engineering high affinity T cell receptor proteins (TCRs) as a means of “supercharging” the strength of patient T cell responses. Adaptimmune holds an exclusive license to the use of Immunocore Ltd’s (formerly Avidex/MediGene) unique T cell receptor engineering technology for adoptive T cell therapy. It is aiming to exploit this unique capability in the development of targeted T cell therapy in cancer and infectious disease. Backed by private investors and located alongside Immunocore Ltd in its Oxford facilities, Adaptimmune operates a virtual business model with a small, focused management team and strong academic collaborations for the conduct of research, preclinical and clinical studies in HIV and cancer.