Profile

Sana is building 2 franchises around its delivery platform and its induced Pluripotent stem cell therapies. Their delivery platform is about using virus-like particles with fusion proteins in them to develop targeted delivery to cells. This is a very interesting delivery platform. The big issue will be their manufacturing. They will need to make some breakthroughs on the technology to reach a commercial scale for this kind of delivery system. The other platform is for making iPSC cells for cell therapies. This is where they take differentiated cells and turn them back into stem cells. Then they edit their DNA to make master banks of cells for therapies. They are focused on CAR-T therapies. They are developing other cell therapies around islet cells, liver cells, and glial cells. They have hypoimmune edits for their cell therapies to mask these cells from the immune system.

Management

I have been following Sana and Steve Harr for over a year now. I think he is a good CEO. He does really well on science and presenting the science for the company. I do think he has been overzealous on spending and recently had to cut back programs and spending. I am glad he was good enough to react to the need, but I think he should have been cost wise from the beginning. They are just entering the clinic now, and it will take time so see how well they manage the drug development process.

Science

SC291 is for CD19 for patients with B cell lymphomas. This is their ex-vivo iPSC engineered CAR-T cells. They have the hypoimmune edits in these cells. This data will inform us of what hypoimmune contributes to the durability of these cell therapies. This is entering phase 1 in 2023.

SG295 is for CD19 for patients with B cell lymphomas. This is their in-vivo fusogen delivered CAR-T cell therapy. They have the hypoimmune edits in these cells. This data will inform us of what fusogen contributes to these cell therapies. This could completely change how we do cell therapies if it works well. They are planning the IND for this program in 2023.

SC262 is for CD22 for patients with B cell lymphomas. This would be for patients who failed CD19 or it can be combined with other CD19 therapies. They do have the hypoimmune edits in these cells. It will also be our first look at CD22 as a target. This data will inform us of what CD22 can contribute to cell therapies. They plan to submit an IND for this program in 2023.

SC451 is an islet cell program where they create islet cells to produce insulin for diabetes. This is a very big indication with over 1 million patients with a level of diabetes that might look for this kind of therapy. These cells are hypoimmune to avoid killing by the immune system. The one possible issue would be these cells becoming infected with a virus as they won't have MHC to present antigens. They might need vaccinations prior to treatment or they might include a switch to clear the cells should this happen.

Valuation

Cash $511 million

SC291 is CD19 for about 75,000 patients with B cell lymphomas. They will compete here with many other CD19 CAR-T therapies. This would be only worth about $500 million sales unless they show best in class data. With it just entering phase 1, that would be a .1 multiple. That gives it $50 million in value.

SC295 is CD19 for about 75,000 patients with B cell lymphomas. They will compete here with many other CD19 CAR-T therapies. This would be only worth about $500 million sales unless they show best in class data. With it just entering phase 1, that would be a .1 multiple. That gives it $50 million in value.

SC262 is their CD22 program which will target B cell lymphomas. They will probably target patients who failed CD19 therapies. They might even combine this with other CD19 therapies. I have not seen any data for a CD22 target in cell therapies. We will have to see how the data compares to CD19. It could be better or worse. I would give a rough guess of $500 million similar to CD19 unless the data is very impressive. I would give it a .1 multiple for being preclinical. That is $50 million in value.

SC451 is their cell therapy using islet cells for diabetes. I think they could do a few thousand doses of these therapies per year. This could be a multi billion dollar opportunity. I think it could be worth $3 billion or more if the data is impressive. I would give this a .1 multiple for being preclinical. That is worth $300 million in value.

All in, that is a $961 million market cap. Based on the 191 million shares outstanding, that comes to $5.03.

Partnerships

Coming Soon

Events

SC291 IND submitted and starting phase 1 in 2023

SG295 Submit IND in 2023

SC262 Submit IND in 2023

SC451 Submit IND in 2024

Data Readouts

They don't have any data yet, but their animal data for Hypoimmune looks very promising.

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Events & Presentations

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