Eric David & Sons Interview With Dr. Dan Gelvan Of GammaCan

Eric David & Sons: Can you introduce our readers to your management team?

Dan Gelvan : I am Dan Gelvan and I am heading the company. I have a PhD in Business Economics and before I joined GammaCan, I headed a cancer drug discovery company in which we set up a high-throughput technology to detect 'hard to detect' anticancer drugs. Previously, I have worked for one of Israel ’s largest conglomerates and have extensive experience in strategic dealings including raising money and mergers and acquisitions.

On the scientific side, the company is headed by one of Israel ’s most prominent scientists and physicians, Professor Yehuda Shoenfeld, MD. He heads a large hospital ward at The Sheba Medical Center and is a world-renowned expert in autoimmunity and immune diseases.

EDS: Can you discuss the GCAN101 treatment? How does it work and what are its benefits?

DG: GCAN101 is based on the use of a substance we all have in our bodies known as Immunoglobulins. Immunoglobulins are an inherent and important part of the immune system in our body. You can look at the immune system as being divided into two parts: one of them is the T-cells that will infiltrate tissues and look for foreign invaders and the Immunoglobulins that are basically floating around the body looking for foreign penetration. The basic idea about GCAN101 is that when a patient develops a cancer, it is an indication that the particular patient’s immune system could not deal with that specific cancer. Now that does not mean that that the particular patient could not deal with any other cancer, nor does it mean the particular can could not have been dealt with by other patients. The idea of GCAN101 is to use other people’s Immunoglobulins in the cancer patient in order to enable the patient to fight off the tumour. GCAN101 is based on IVIG Intravenous Immunoglobulins that is a plasma derived product. So basically what you get when you buy IVIG is a pooled product taking the Immunoglobulins found in at least 6,000 patients at any point time. So in populist terms, what you get is a back-up copy of 6,000 people’s immune system as represented by their Immunoglobulins. Immunoglobulins are presently used to treat autoimmune diseases and this is how Professor Shoenfeld, who as an expert in autoimmunity had great experience with immunoglobulins postulated initially. What has been shown in vast amounts of rodent studies is that the hypothesis appears to be correct. When you give IVIG, the mice are able to fight off their own cancers and in particular the metastatic process is inhibited. An important benefit of IVIG is that it is probably one of the best-tolerated compounds around in the market today. It has been used on the feeblest patients for twenty years. It is the standard of care for diseases such as Bubble Boy Disease, in which a patient lacks the ability to produce their own Immunoglobulins and they seem to be holding out very well receiving IVIG for many years. So I would say that what we have here is the hope that we will be able to treat cancer patients without the dire side effects typical for conventional and modern anti-cancer approaches.

EDS: Can you discuss the variety of therapy modes?

DG: We do not regard the treatment as a primary treatment. It is a prevention of Metastasis. Once we have shown that a patient is incapable of dealing with his own cancer, we know that if that patient has undergone surgery, regular therapy and Chemotherapy there is a fairly large chance the cancer is going to reoccur within the next five years even if the initial treatment was successful. We think the reason the cancer is going to come back is that the patient’s immune system is incapable of dealing with that particular cancer. So our treatment vision is to treat patients in the five years following their initial treatment. We are not talking about giving this treatment instead of surgery or chemotherapy, but to have this be the treatment given to patients who have already been declared clean, meaning that the initial treatment worked. We will then see patients coming in for a periodical injection to prevent the reoccurrence of the disease.

EDS: Can you discuss the trials underway in Israel ?

DG: We will be recruiting thirty patients suffering from one of three caners: Metastatic Prostate Cancer, Metastatic Colon Cancer or Metastatic Melanoma. We will be administering a fairly high dosage of IVIG every month for three months to see if there is any significant response from the tumour. What we are trying to see in this trial is the anti-cancer effect of IVIG. What we have seen many times in mice, we want to see in humans this time.

EDS: What will the cost of treatment be? How does this compare to treatment options currently available?

DG: I have been in this industry for about ten or fifteen years and I wish we were already at a stage where we could be concerned with the cost of anti-cancer drugs. I think that at this stage our hope is that we can find some drugs that will prevent Metastasis, but I do not think we can talk about costs yet. Anti-cancer drugs that are efficient do tend to become expensive in that market. That is not only a pricing decision by the manufacturers; it is a cost issue because the anti-bodies tend to be more expensive than chemical substances. IVIG is derived from plasma donations so by definition, it is not inexpensive. We do not think GCAN 101 is going to be an inexpensive treatment, but we certainly hope it is going to be efficacious.

EDS: Do you expect to generate income in 2005?

DG: We do not expect income in 2005. We will be advancing very well with the Phase II in 2005, but that should not generate any revenue.

EDS: Who will handle the sale of the drug once it is marketable?

DG: As we move ahead in the development process, we intend to go out and partner with another pharmaceutical company who will undertake the marketing and sale of the drug. So it is really hard to discuss at this stage how we will sell the drug when it hits the market. We will be taking it forward as much as we think it is optimal for a young company to do and then look for a partner for the clinical studies and the final regulative stages.

EDS: How many shares are outstanding and how many are in the public trade-able float?

DG: There are round and about 26 million shares outstanding and about a million shares are in the public trade-able float.

EDS: What percentage of stock do company insiders hold?

DG: They hold about 45%.

EDS: Is there anything else you would like to add or to say about the company?

DG: Only that I think, having been fifteen years in anti-cancer that this is an exciting opportunity to look a bit differently at cancer than what has been done before. What we have seen in cancer therapy was they started out using toxic Chemotherapies, the second generation has been very successful with Monoclonal antibodies and what we have now is the Polyclonal antibody approach such as GCAN 101. This means that we look at cancer as a heterogeneous disease and we come in with a heterogeneous, or multi-functional drug. That is a very exciting opportunity for me because I really believe that this is the third generation of anti-cancer drugs.

Please view the EDS disclaimer/disclosure on GCAN.

2003 © Eric, David & Sons, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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