Join us for an insightful interview with Invion Limited(ASX: IVX) with host James Whelan, as he discusses the progress of next-generation Photodynamic Therapy(PDT) technology and Invion Limited’s activity updates with Thian Chew, Executive Chair and CEO of Invion Limited. 

In this engaging conversation, Thian Chew talks about Invion Limited's innovative approach to targeting cancer cells while activating the immune system, offering a promising alternative to traditional therapies like chemotherapy and radiotherapy. He shares highlights from the recently published Activity Report, including signing a collaboration agreement with a major leading South Korean company and the imminent commencement of skin cancer trials. 

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James Whelan: Hello and welcome to another Corporate Showcase. My name is James Whelan, Managing Director of Barclay Pearce Capital's Wealth Management Division, joined here by the head of Invion Limited, Thian Chew. Invion Limited, with their next-generation PDT technology, focused on killing just cancer cells and activating the immune system in comparison to chemo and radiotherapy, what's known as "carpet bomb". We're going to go into that in just a second.

Also, if you want to value them on other companies, they are undervalued compared to other companies as well. We will get into that too. First of all, I'm going to introduce Thian Chew, head of Invion Limited. As I said, Thian, how are you now?  

Thian Chew: Great, James, how about you?

James Whelan: Really good to talk to you though, we don't get enough chances to catch up.

Now, uh, you mentioned undervaluation versus other players in the market when we were talking earlier today, just wanted to, if you had a chance to go into that.

Thian Chew: So if you look at the statistics, one in a thousand companies actually even get to a phase one clinical trial. Once you get to a clinical trial, one in 10 get approved.

Those are the statistics. That's why when you've got a company that's at clinical trial stage, it's significantly de-risked versus something at an earlier stage. And we're about to, um, move forward and commence a number of clinical trials in multiple cancer indications, which is essentially where the biggest unmet need in R&D and in healthcare right now. 

James Whelan: It's going to be exciting to see what comes up out of that. And I will be following that quite closely with my clients we have and our advisors too. Now you've just had a, uh, recently published activity report. I'm going to let you continue the show here and talk about it. Um, because you definitely know the details about that, but it seemed fairly positive from what I'm reading here.  

Thian Chew: Well, it's been an interesting quarter and it's really a culmination of all the things we've been working on for the past couple of years. And one of the items is we're essentially on the cusp of essentially starting our first clinical trial, which is in non-melanoma skin cancers. We are waiting for the ethics, uh, feedback, in which case we'll be ready to go surely after that. So I think that's certainly one of the catalysts that investors look for.

But the second catalyst or second interesting update was we'd done some work with the Peter Maccallum Cancer Center on combining our therapy with a type of immunotherapy called checkpoint inhibitors, which is essentially the main blockbuster drug in cancer today.

Uh, it accounts for billions of dollars of revenue. And when they work, they work really well. The problem is that their response rates are typically not that high. It can be as low as 12 per cent or lower. And what we did with Peter Mac was we found that the standalone was consistent with the industry at about 12%.

But when we did it in combination with our PDT, we increased that to 80 per cent response rate, and this was done in a mouse model, Uh, using an annulus squamous cell carcinoma model,  which, you know, we were pretty excited. Peter Mac is really excited. So we're looking to integrate some of these outcomes into our, you know, upcoming clinical trials.

And hopefully we could increase and improve the response rate for the ability to activate the immune system when fighting cancers, because that's ultimately where you can get sustained sort of regression and tumour sort of, uh, treatment.

James Whelan: Excellent. And, uh, I believe there was a collaboration announced. 

Thian Chew: Yes, there was as well. So this was actually outside cancer, and this is actually outside the cancer compound we're using INV043. Um, we have a portfolio of about over 300 novel compounds. And we signed with a South Korean company called Dr. IMB, which actually has experience with PDT as well.

They looked at our data, they liked what they saw, and basically they committed to funding and running development process in Korea with deontological hospitals, and looking at, uh, proof of concept clinical trials for HPV virus, which is a very, it's actually the most prevalent STD, highly prevalent in this part of the world.

James Whelan: Hmm. Yeah. And it sounds like good progress in that regard as well, especially with the collaboration with the hospital. Now. The process for skin cancer trials coming up, um, the expected start date maybe not be so specific...

Thian Chew: Yeah, look, we're hoping, I mean, we have, uh, submitted to the ethics committee.

We, we have a site, we have a protocol, we, uh, kind of, we're kind of just raring to go... but we do need to get the thumbs up before we can move forward. And we're hoping we're relatively not too far away from doing that.

James Whelan: I'm looking forward to seeing that kick-off and in the results that will come after that as well, uh, confident.

So thank you for joining us, Thian Chew of Invion Limited for this corporate showcase. Uh, anyone who wants to know more about the story, please contact myself or any of the links that we're going to be posting on this one, the one when it is released. And generally speaking, please feel free to reach out because this really is a great story doing some amazing things.

Um, the technology that they have is the PDT, which is phenomenal and really needs to be known, about how much more advanced I believe that it is. And the initial testing has shown that it is so, um, really is a good one. Thank you very much for joining us, Thian. And I hope that you have yourself a good afternoon. 

Thian Chew:Great. Thanks very much. 

For further information on this investment opportunity, please contact James Whelan.

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