What follows is an investigation of Exicure. A company whose technology allows humanity the ability “to target the underlying cause of the disease.” Sounds pretty ambitious right?
How, you may ask, does it plan to accomplish this lofty goal? Well, the company simply proposes a better mousetrap. Exicure has improved the means of transport within the body. Targeting the body’s cells with greater efficacy of transmission (moving a therapeutic, a drug, into the body’s cells and tissues), gives us more bang for our buck!
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves though, you may be asking how is this Cyberpunk? What does it offer a high-tech, low-life existence… Well, my friend, the sky is the limit!
Part I: Drugs are GOOD
Cyberpunk is Loaded
Perhaps there are few elements as common to the genre of cyberpunk as the expansive and ever-growing list of drug therapies used to enhance any number of human characteristics. Don’t believe us, just check out the Big Book of Drugs created for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. And it’s not just about the feel-good variety, much of it is dedicated to advancing human health and ability. Pushing the body’s limits to perform in a super-human fashion. That is the essence of cyberpunk health mods.
Technologically Enhanced Therapies
For the real-life version in the 21st century, perhaps there is no better use of drugs than to try our hands at therapies built upon nucleic acids to push us past those limits.
What are nucleic acids??? You know the stuff at the center of DNA and RNA. After all, what better to help change the course of humanity in terms of health than to tinker with our DNA and RNA, right? Even Jurassic Park taught us this…
Those core elements of DNA and RNA, nucleic acids, offer us the ability to provide new coding into our cells and create a pathway for new health therapies across a number of human ailments and desires.
As far back as the year 2000, scientists published in the scientific journal Nature describing that the impact of such technology in the area of immunology and cancer research using nucleic acids vaccines would “undoubtedly be one of the most important advances in the history of vaccinology.” For the longest time, however, getting these therapies to uptake into the body’s cells and tissues was a difficult task.
Partnering to Produce
Fast forward twenty years and there are a number of publicly-traded companies that are working on exactly this problem and making dramatic breakthroughs.
The newcomers are quickly finding themselves a number of very willing and interested partners. More importantly, they are finding a quality stream of cash-flow to really push development.
Within this field of partnered-up biotechs, we also find the company we look at today, Exicure. Their own partnership being with $187.378B Abbvie Inc’s (as of 3/9/21 on Yahoo! Finance) subsidiary Allergan, the maker of Botox.
The Exicure Difference
What separates Exicure from the rest of those companies partnering with larger, more established biotechs, is that Exicure stands alone as the only to be platform agnostic. Big fancy tech words, I know, simply put – it works well across a number of platforms.
Not limited to a single design in nucleic acid therapy, Exicure works across a number of them making the applications far more widespread and scalable. Ultimately, this means to develop into a number of fields including neurology, immuno-oncology (getting the body’s own immune system to fight cancer), dermatology, ophthalmology, GI tract, lung, and liver therapies.
Part II: Diving in to the Deep Ends of the Business
Those little bits, the nucleic acids, come in a variety of shapes and sizes. When we re-code these strands to treat disease, it can be difficult to get the body to take them into the cells and tissues. So Exicure came up with a fix. It’s all about opportunity and that better mousetrap.
Exicure set out to maximize the uptake of a variety of drugs. So they went about redesigning the mode of transportation. Where linear models presented only a few options for uptake into a cell. Exicure’s SNA (Spherical Nucleic Acid) proprietary technology gives multiple chances.
Due to the spherical structure, the likelihood is increased that receptors in the body’s cells will match-up with the introduced therapy and that the cell will take in the proposed therapeutic. More importantly, because of its unique properties, SNA (again, Exicure’s Proprietary Tech) can enter into the tissues of a variety of organs beyond the liver (the conventional uptake organ). Now direct treatment can be applied to the Brain, Eye, Gastrointestinal Tract, Lungs, and Skin; just to reiterate. That’s a lot of organ systems.
The best part is it apparently does this without the added toxicity, or harmful side effects, of other treatments currently on the market. So sayeth the video posted above anyway.
How is Exicure Tech Different
Bio-Med
What we are saying is that structure makes all the difference. Nucleic acid therapies are revolutionary in and of themselves but getting them applied can be difficult. Exicure seeks to change that. After all, all the great products of the world don’t have an impact unless someone can get them effectively from origin to our homes, and into our lives.
By providing a new means of delivery they say they can achieve three primary benefits: increased uptake, more stability (stays in the body longer), and can be applied to a number of different body tissues beyond just the liver.
Business Orientation
So that’s the Bio-med side. As for the business side of things, benefit three (that multitude of pesky different organs) is not only the most important health benefit but also likely to be the most profitable as we see it. Because it can be applied to a host of cells/tissues/organs, the technology can be licensed across a wide range of companies producing different therapeutics, the technology becomes ultimately scalable. Therefore… profitable.
The licensing potential of these opportunities is just beginning. With so many different tissue systems ripe for therapy the chance for scale increases dramatically. For instance, the neurological applications are just now being put into clinical trial…
The Results…
Well, as they say the proof is in the pudding, and from one colloidal mixture to another, the pudding is in on Exicure.
Exicure simply delivers better uptake. With 2x the level of health transfer, and 4x longer survival than its competitor, Exicure delivers a better mousetrap, hands down. Linear oligo therapeutics make way for Exicure, and SNA.
Exicure simply delivers more bang for the buck if you will excuse the parlance. Not only does their stuff get in better, but it also sticks around longer. Exicure provides drug endurance. And who doesn’t love a longer-lasting high, uh, I mean longer-lasting relief from my headaches? A better physical state of health?
So, what does this all ultimately mean? When you add up a number of health issues that have few therapies to treat them and add Exicure as a delivery model, you increase the odds of new drugs having an impact. Meaning – better, more effective treatment. This makes lives better and treatment means profit, a win-win!
And Exicure, is definitely placing itself in the right spot within the field. Their business model is robust and is apparently setup with the cash it needs into the next year (2022).
Oversimplified, Maybe
Have we oversimplified the matrix??? Perhaps, but we don’t think so. Exicure is straightforward providing the axes and shovels to the miners, or perhaps a better analogy is providing shipping, distribution and logistics to Amazon. Hard to get right, you bet ya’, but look at what Amazon spends to do just that?!?!?
Ok, so all is well and good. Great tech, well-positioned business. So what is the broader community saying you ask? Don’t worry, we got ya’ covered there too.
Part 3: Community Buzz
Getting the buzz is exactly that… diving into the headlines and news beats on Exicure so we can get a read on the pulse of the company in the broader community. We go beyond the tech.
Getting the Right Guidance
For Exicure development on their tech isn’t the only thing they are focused on. By continuing to build with quality people in their representative fields, Exicure is better positioning the company to navigate the high-flying world of biopharma. Two of its latest additions help to illustrate exactly this: Elizabeth (Betsy) Garofalo, M.D. and Mr. Andrew Sassine to its Board of Director.
Elizabeth (Betsy) Garofalo, M.D. represents “25 years of experience in global clinical development and regulatory affairs,” and a significant culmination as the “Head of the Neuroscience Therapy Area at Astellas, Ann Arbor Site Head of Worldwide Regulatory Affairs at Pfizer, and Ann Arbor Site Head of Neuroscience at Pfizer.” So it would be safe to say it seems like she knows what she is doing.
As for Mr. Andrew Sassine, no slouch himself currently serves as CFO (Chief Financial Officer) and Board Member of Arcturus Therapeutics and is a former Fidelity Fund Manager.
Quality additions, both. By the way, if you didn’t check it out above, the named links above aren’t just the news story, they are the links to their Linked In Profiles… worth checking out, as it gives a deeper look into how they represent themselves in the community.
Broader Buzz on Tech
“I am excited to join the Exicure team and its distinguished Board of Directors… I believe their technology has the ability to change the face of medicine by expanding and facilitating the delivery of DNA and RNA medicines to new and more challenging diseases.”
– Andrew Sassine, Chief Financial Officer
and member of the board of directors of Arcturus Therapeutics.
He also serves on the board of directors of ICAD, Inc.
For Exicure, it is certainly about that game-changing tech and the quality people needed to bring it to life. As we see in the quote above, Exicure is attracting a great assortment of talent to its business as the tech presented by the company has such great potential. That potential is what we see developing in the community at large.
The headlines over the last year really speak for themselves and support this thesis…
1.
2.
The results of the study can be found here.
3.
New collaborations and a set of new positive developments from the results of investigative uses of the therapeutics offered by Exicure certainly point to a bright future.
Analysts and More Say Buy, Buy, Buy…
Insider sentiment, according to you Yahoo! Finance (above) remains strong. More importantly, despite heavy increases in value to the insider holdings, they have not been selling over the last year, demonstrating the belief that they are just getting started.
As of March 5, 2021, Directorstalkinterviews.com reported that Exicure had now received the considerations of 5 analysts “with a consensus rating is ‘Buy’. The range between the high target price and low target price is between 18 and 6.” That same article said the price at that day/time was 2.27 and would have a potential upside of 340.5%! Pretty darn impressive.
For others in the investment and finance community, they see incredible value in comparison to other stocks in their price range. Investors Observer stipulated exactly this when they promoted a “strong overall score (for Exicure) of 90 meaning the stock holds a better value than 90% of stocks at its current price.” Better yet, the headlines on their site (see above) indicate the market is taking notice and going Buy, Buy, Buy.
Part 4: Conclusions
So what does all this mean? While some CP gear gets us enhancing our mental states from the outside, others do it on the inside.
The 20th century brought us many technologies. Tech the likes of which can play with our basic human coding. Getting the tools inside to make sure that tech has the desired impact, however, has been challenging. A company like Exicure could change all that.
What it means more specifically, is that when scientists create new code that can heal our bodies, or dare we say designer code that can enhance our health beyond the normal (ok, we are still hoping for coded superhuman abilities), we need a better mousetrap. The ones that we’d been using are minimally effective and don’t ensure that the desired effects take hold. Exicure is changing that.
To say that Exicure is tracking our bodies may be an overstatement, but their ability to move around our bodies and dive deep to provide the health benefits of the 21st century may be just beginning. A better mousetrap indeed!
As always, make sure we are thinking for ourselves out there, doing our own homework, and cyberizing our lives with the best in disruptive tech. We aren’t doctors or professional investors, we’re just the average guy out there in the free flow of the masses looking for understanding and wanting to share. For those fueled by health-tech make sure to explore our BCB Cyber Health Section in more detail! See you next time on BCB Cyber.