Cesca Therapeutics Inc KOOL 5.56% is poised to make much headway with its automated CAR-T manufacturing platform CAR-TXpress, according to H.C. Wainwright.
CAR-T-cell therapy is a method of treating cancer by using a patient’s immune system cells — T cells — which are then modified by adding a gene in the lab for a special chimeric antigen receptor, or CAR, to attack cancer cells. CAR binds to a certain protein present in the patient’s cancer cell.
The Analyst
Analyst Swayampakula Ramakanth initiated coverage of Cesca with a Buy and $1.50 price target.
The Thesis
Cesca’s CAR-TXpress is likely to address the factors that are behind the high production costs of CAR-T cells, which could impede further advancements in CAR-T research and adoption, Ramakanth said in a Wednesday note.
The production costs are $100,000 per patient, the analyst said, naming five reasons for the high cost:
- Insufficient starting T-cell material.
- Labor- and time-intensive processing steps.
- Expensive reagents and machinery.
- Earge clean room footprints.
- Complicated c-GMP compliance.
CAR-T therapies have a market opportunity of $8.5 billion by 2028, up from $15 million in 2017, according to H.C. Wainwright.
Modular automation — a feature of CAR-TXpress — could be a game-changer, Ramakanth said.
“Currently, we project CAR-TXpress products to generate revenue of $548,000 in 2018, growing to $34 million by 2030.”
H.C. Wainwright projects opportunity for the company in the contract research development manufacturing organization market; Cesca has signed an exclusive license agreement in China and is likely to expand in the U.S., Ramakanth said.
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