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Cyplasin Biomedical Ltd.
(CYPL-OTC: BB)
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Cyplasin Biomedical Has Discovered That Their
Protein That Originally Came From The Sea Hare Has Great Selectivity And Is
Able To Target Cancer Cells And Not Harm Normal Cells
Healthcare
Biotechnology
(CYPL-OTC: BB)
Cyplasin Biomedical Ltd.
9650 – 20 Avenue
Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6N 1G1
Phone: 780.469.2975 (CYPL)
Garth Likes
President and CEO
Interview conducted by:
Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor
CEOCFOinterviews.com
Published – January 11, 2008
BIO:
Mr. Garth Likes
President & CEO
Over the past 28 years Mr.
Likes has worked with a number of biotech, Pharma and diagnostic companies
ranging from start up/pre IPO/public fortune 500 companies in areas of: New
Product & Business Development/Commercialization/Sales Management, Strategic
& Tactical marketing/Operations Management /Corporate Financing. He is
currently Chairman of the Merger and Acquisition committee, member of the
Audit Committee and board member of LAB Research International, (TSX:LRI).
He was co-founder of Helix Biopharma (TSX: HBP), Founder of PDI BioScience
Inc, a private scientific product development and distribution company and
has served at senior levels as a biotech consultant to numerous public and
private biotechnology companies. Mr. Likes has practical experience in
Product development & commercialization – diagnostics/ therapeutics/
instrumentation/ bioreagents, clinical trials process/QA,QC, Operations,
project and marketing management of various sized companies, Structuring a
number of successful technology transfer business deals, in and out
licensing, mergers & acquisition, Technology transfer from University
/Government research labs/development & commercialization thereof. He has
many years experience in raising capital for corporate financings and his
technical & academic knowledge encompasses a B.Sc and M.Sc. plus
work-related experience with projects in Cancer, Immunology, HIV,
Cell/Microbiology, and Infectious Disease.
Company Profile:
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with a research laboratory close to Berlin,
Germany, CBL is dedicated to bringing new anticancer therapeutics to the
marketplace. The Company's current goal is to develop and commercialize the
anticancer properties of Cyplasin-SC(TM) for skin cancers and melanomas. CBL
is publicly traded (CYPL: OTCBB).
Cyplasin Biomedical Ltd. was originally incorporated pursuant to the laws of
the State of Nevada on May 12, 2004 under the name Glass Wave Enterprises,
Inc. Effective February 16, 2007, we changed our name to Cyplasin Biomedical
Ltd. and effected a stock split of our authorized, issued and outstanding
common stock after we entered into an asset purchase agreement dated
February 1, 2007 with Professor Christian Petzelt. The asset purchase
agreement saw the company acquiring certain intellectual property rights
pertaining to cancer treatments, specifically protein molecules, for
potential applications in treating various cancers in exchange for the
issuance by our company of shares of our common stock. On April 10, 2007, we
entered into an asset purchase agreement with Bioxen Ltd. to acquire other
related intellectual property. The closing of the transactions in this asset
purchase agreement and the acquisition of the intellectual property occurred
on April 10, 2007.
The company believes Cyplasin™ will be useful as a therapeutic drug against
multiple types of cancer and the first developed application will be
Cyplasin-SC™ for the treatment of skin cancer and human melanoma.
The Company has initiated preclinical trials for Cyplasin-SC which will
demonstrate the efficacy/toxicity profile in animals. These studies will
generate the data required for submission to the various regulatory
authorities to initiate the next step in product development, which are
clinical trials in humans.
The finished product will be delivered to the patient either by intravenous
injection into the bloodstream or by injection under the skin close to the
tumor via a topical microinjection to the tumor mass. Current studies
suggest Cyplasin either can cause the death of the whole tumor, or if used
in tandem with current surgical procedures will kill any remaining cancer
cells which might metastasize or spread to other parts of the body via the
blood circulation system, after the tumor has been removed by conventional
surgery.
CEOCFO:
Mr. Likes, Cyplasin Biomedical was founded in 2007, what is the vision and
how do you get there?
Mr. Likes:
“The vision of the founding members of the company is to work within the
cancer field and to develop therapeutic products therein. That vision
stemmed from the discovery of a protein isolated from a sea organism called
the Sea Hare (Aplysia Punctata). This protein was found to have high
therapeutic effect and activity in its various forms of cancer cell lines.
From there we proceeded to perform the proof of concept studies and the
company and the vision was born from there.”
CEOCFO:
What made you look there?
Mr. Likes:
“Serendipity is probably the best exclamation. It started back in 1997 when
our chief scientific officer Professor Christian Petzelt, was working at a
marine research station on an island off the coast of the south of France.
He had established a research center to perform various marine/molecular
biology type experiments. He noticed that this Sea Hare was in a tide pool
and as he approached it, it actually excreted an ink similar to a squid or
an octopus. Intrigued, because he wasn’t aware that Sea Hares excrete these
inks, he collected the animal, tested the ink and found through several
generations of experiments later that there is a substance within this ink
that actually had the affect against cancer cells. Later on, he also found
out that it was only when the Sea Hares are apparently pregnant that they
actually excrete this particular ink. Through a series of observations and
right place, right time, and a keen scientific observation, Professor
Petzelt was able to elucidate this protein. From there he made it
artificially in the lab, as a recombinant protein so we now can manufacture
this protein at will. This product is called Cyplasin-SC”
CEOCFO:
Where are you in the process of testing?
Mr. Likes:
“During the development R&D stages, we had isolated Cyplasin-SC from the Sea
Hare ink and then sequenced the protein. Once we had the recombinant version
of the protein we were able to produce enough so that we started testing it
against various cancer cell lines and we found that it has a great
application against specific types of cancer. We found that it had a great
effect against human melanoma cell lines and various skin cancers. The key
to this product and what made it so intriguing to look at, is the fact that
it had totally no effect whatsoever on healthy normal non-cancerous cells.
Even at an early stage, we were hoping that one could develop a product that
would have 1) great selectivity for a target cancer cell and 2) there would
be a low toxicology profile for the drug. We found this to be the case with
the Cyplasin-SC.
The decision to
look at a melanoma application first was taken because we knew that an
initial product form could be developed as a topical application via
microinjection at or near the tumor site. We could use this as an adjunct to
surgery for an initial product and then later perhaps as a primary therapy
as we develop the data for proof within the medical industry that Cyplasin-SC
works on these types of cells. So we want to start with the melanoma
application and then develop the other cancer applications as well.”
CEOCFO:
Are your labs in Germany?
Mr. Likes:
“Yes, Professor Christian Petzelt actually lives in Berlin and he has lab
facilities there so the company operates at this point virtually in the
sense that we are somewhat scattered over the globe; our financing partners
are out of Vancouver, and Germany. Our investors and directors and other
members of the board are spread throughout Europe and Canada. It is a very
interesting challenge sometimes to develop the product not only from a
technical point, but also to maintain a smooth and coordinated communication
plan. However it keeps the burn rate low which is important for a company
such as ours”
CEOCFO:
What is the timetable going forward?
Mr. Likes:
“the initiation of the whole project started first of all with the
development of cell based assays to find out what the protein targeted. Then
we moved into cell-based efficacy studies to start looking at the dosing, to
determine the range of how much Cyplasin- SC™ it took to kill these cells in
an active matter while still maintaining a good toxicology profile. Once we
had established that we knew enough to move it into animals, so we then did
dosing studies with animals. If it kills cancer cells then at some point, it
has to have some toxicity for healthy animals and we found out that it took
an extreme amount of high-dose Cyplasin-SC to kill healthy animals. Once we
had established a range of what to expect from a dosing perspective we
injected our mouse animal model with Cyplasin-SC. These mice had been
prepared to produce human form melanoma cancer tumors on their backs. We
then took what we considered to be an effective therapeutic dose that was
still well within the safety tolerance and started working. We asked the
questions would Cyplasin-SC at the doses given shrink the tumor, or would
they slow the growth of the tumor, and what sort of affect would you
actually see in the animals. From there we observed that we can stop the
growth of a tumor and in our last press release, we announced that verses
the control we found a dose dependence of Cyplasin-SC to the size of the
tumor.
While it was expected, it was gratifying to see that our work was starting
to pay off because we could see the fact that it has a great reality of
becoming a product for melanoma. From there we are repeating those studies
to make sure that we have enough mice statistically to show that we can not
only slow the growth of these tumors but also perhaps in this next set of
studies maybe even look at reduction of tumor size and regression. From
there we are looking at toxicology studies, the final animal toxicology
studies. We will also be working with the FDA, towards a preclinical meeting
with them, assuming that we can get one. However, I don’t see why we
shouldn’t because they are very willing to work with early stage companies
like ours to make sure that we design our studies properly and have answered
all the questions we need to answer. Once we get those toxicology studies
which will be six months to a year once they are started, we will be filing
our IND, so we are hoping an IND in late 2008, early 2009, we will then move
into human Phase I studies.”
CEOCFO:
What is your financial picture?
Mr. Likes:
“Initially we had a group of angel VC people that came onboard. They have
committed funds to take us to Phase I, so our funding is pretty secure and
they have deep enough pockets to make sure that we are going to get to where
we are going to go. We are always looking for a biotech company, investors,
to help us grow and evolve. If we had further funding we could possibly look
at developing, the other applications faster or at least get the R&D done.
We are public; the stock is trading at levels appropriate for our stage of
growth and will only increase as we get our story out to the market. The
stock price is appreciating as we continue to meet our milestones and as the
market comes to understand what we are doing. There is great upside
potential with Cyplasin Biomedical and everything is on course as to be
expected.”
CEOCFO:
Would you touch on your background?
Mr. Likes:
“From Professor Christian Petzelt’sperspective, he has been a scientist of
note for the last 30-plus years, and he has founded several companies
himself and has many patents to his credit. His reputation is that of a
strong biologist, professor, research, and business development person.
I started in the
field 28 years ago. I have worked in various start-up companies where I have
either been at a senior management level and I have been the founder of
three other private companies. One such company, which is public that I was
a cofounder of, was Helix Biopharma Corp that is listed on the Toronto Stock
Exchange. I have been involved in financing, marketing, sales, and later on
in the last part of my career more into the therapeutic development where
you can take a product from the research bench to the commercial market. I
have worked with many public and private companies on the US/Canadian west
coast, in Montreal, Toronto and Alberta. You can read more about our
backgrounds on our website. www.cyplasin.com
Our management
has a very well rounded experience and a company such as Cyplasin Biomedical
is a company that totally suits the management style because we are able to
take something from beginning and confidently move it forward through
development cycles and onto clinical trials. The plan is to at some point
partner off with partners that can then take the product into the later
clinical trial stages and commercialization. Cyplasin Biomedical is an R&D
product development company and this is one of the reasons we would be
looking for the funding here within the next six months to help us with the
manufacturing and Phase I of Cyplasin as well as start shifting our gears
for other cancer applications of the product.”
CEOCFO:
Why should potential investors be looking at Cyplasin Biomedical now and
what might they miss when they first look at the company that they really
should know?
Mr. Likes:
“The whole investment opportunity for Cyplasin Biomedical is the fact that
it is focused on cancer. In addition, it is focused on taking a product that
was originally derived from natural sources and that is something that
sometimes plays either good or bad in the press, but this is a protein pure
and natural, that we found a human therapeutic use for. It is a real
product, not something that we made artificially and do not know what we
have. What we are doing is fine-tuning a marine organism derived protein
into an anti cancer application and that is what many people might miss; the
novelty of being able to be successfully one of the very few companies that
has that opportunity. Look at TAXOL for example or aspirin and all the other
various naturally derived products, they have later moved on to become large
and important contributions to medicine. We believe that Cyplasin-SC has the
same type of therapeutic ability and we can create great value within the
cancer field. From an investment point of view, yes we are young as a
company, but the management, board of directors and its financial backers
are all well seasoned and the money is there, so all the ingredients are
right. We are going to move this thing forward. We know the product works,
so if you are investing now you are going to get in when we are undervalued
as a company in the cancer market. In addition, we are not just a one-shop
company in the sense that we have Cyplasin for potential use in 2 or 3 other
cancer applications. While I envision we will be developing Cyplasin for the
current applications and other cancer uses for the foreseeable future I also
want to point out that as we grow there are always other opportunities for
us to look at; other cancer products and technologies, so as to keep adding
other products to our pipeline in a steady and controlled fashion. So this
is a company with value added opportunities now as well as a longer term
growth story that has some real teeth to it.”
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