TapImmune : moves forward with new drugs

By Mark Basch, Contributing Writer

TapImmune Inc. is a pharmaceutical research company that may never make a big splash in Jacksonville, as far as local employment and operations go.However, the company is hoping to make an impact by proving the effectiveness of its cancer treatments under development.

TapImmune describes itself as an 'immune-oncology' company that is developing immunotherapies to treat cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, immunotherapy is a treatment that stimulates a person's immune system to fight cancer and other disease.

'I think this is going to be the future,' TapImmune CEO Glynn Wilson said in a recent interview.

'I think this is such an attractive field right now,' he said.

Wilson operates from a small office in the Downtown Bank of America Tower.

He moved his office from Seattle to Jacksonville in the summer after TapImmune received a government grant to move forward with a clinical trial of a breast cancer treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

Besides breast cancer, TapImmune also is developing treatments for other forms of cancer. This month, the company announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave one of the company's vaccines under development to treat ovarian cancer an 'orphan drug designation.'

The FDA assigns orphan status to drugs designed to treat a rare disease or condition.

TapImmune said there is currently no FDA-approved vaccine to treat ovarian cancer, which the company described as a 'highly aggressive' disease.

TapImmune said the orphan status will allow the company to receive benefits such as tax credits on research and a seven-year market exclusivity for its drug once it receives marketing approval.

TapImmune is a company that was basically spun out from research done at the University of British Columbia.

'It had great science but was an academic pursuit,' Wilson said.

When it began pursuing development of its science as a business, it set up offices in Seattle because 'that was a much better environment for finding people,' he said.

Wilson, who has been CEO since 2009, had been working in research and development and product development for major pharmaceutical companies before taking on TapImmune.

'It was clear that research and development was going to be done in small companies,' he said.

TapImmune's Jacksonville headquarters office is basically a one-man operation. Manufacturing of its therapies is done in California and other company officials work out of other cities, such as its medical director in Boca Raton.

Wilson doesn't expect its Jacksonville headquarters office to grow very large, perhaps hiring financial personnel as the company grows.

However, he is optimistic about the company's future growth prospects.

TapImmune's stock trades on the Over-The-Counter Bulletin Board under the ticker symbol 'TPIV,' but Wilson is hoping to increase its visibility by getting a Nasdaq listing.

'That's clearly our objective in 2016,' he said.

He is also hoping that trials of the company's treatments will bring attention to the stock.

The U.S. Department of Defense's decision to give Mayo a $13.3 million grant for trials of TapImmune's breast cancer treatment is one validation of the company's potential, and the orphan drug designation by the FDA is another.

'I see this as just the beginning,' Wilson said.

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Article courtesy of: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com

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