Vaccine Victories, A Very Small Dose That May Go A Long Way In The Fight Against COVID-19.
CHATTERLEY: Welcome back to FIRST MOVE where we see U.S. stock market futures on track for a positive open this morning. We're actually looking at gains, as you can see, of almost one and a half percent, if not more. The hope here, I think for investors is the worst of the U.S. economic downturn is now behind us. All of this as the number of people filing for first time jobless claims since mid-March rises to more than 33 million people -- that's 3.2 million in the last week alone.</s>CHATTERLEY: There's a real disconnect, I think between the data that we're seeing and what investors are seeing, too, but that's the way markets work. In earnings news, shares of ride hailing app, Lyft is set to rally over 15 percent. Losses narrowed in ride demand seems to have bottomed in mid- April. Meanwhile, FinTech companies Square and PayPal say business also stabilized in April, too. Hilton Hotels, meanwhile, suspending its dividend and share repurchases. But, it says it has enough cash to last the next 18 to 24 months as bookings plunge and that's key. How long does it take to return to life as we know it? Well, key to that we believe, a global vaccine. San Diego based Arcturus Therapeutics is planning a human clinical trial this summer for their potential offering. The company says a relatively small amount of the compound could vaccinate millions of people. I'm excited to say Joseph Payne is the President and CEO of Arcturus Therapeutics, and he joins us now. Joseph, fantastic to have you on the show. There's something very specific about the vaccine that you are developing and I need you to explain why such a small dose could potentially be so potent.</s>JOSEPH PAYNE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, ARCTURUS THERAPEUTICS: Absolutely, Julia, and by the way, it's good to be with you.</s>CHATTERLEY: Thank you.</s>PAYNE: Our vaccine -- our vaccine is a messenger RNA vaccine, which puts us into a special subgroup of the many vaccines that the global scientific community are pursuing. But at Arcturus, we have a special type of messenger RNA vaccine called self-replicating mRNA. So, it means that once this messenger RNA molecule is ejected, that it not only makes a small amount of the desired antigen or the desired spike protein, but it continues to do so. So, because of this technology, it means we can lower the dose substantially, and this is very important, as you can understand.</s>CHATTERLEY: And it's described as a single shot solution, too.</s>PAYNE: Yes. Yes, you could -- you know, as we've engaged many, many countries around the world, you can understand the importance of the logistical distribution of the vaccine as well in a single shot vaccine versus a shot plus booster, or a two or three-shot vaccine over months can be very challenging. So, we check all the boxes with this vaccine. Not only is it a potential single shot, and a very low dose, but you combine that with the ease of manufacturing, the feasibility of manufacturing this vaccine, it means that we can make a significant impact in millions of people.</s>CHATTERLEY: I mean, just to give people a sense as well, one kilogram could equate to 500 million doses. So, to your point, whether you're talking about developed economies, or perhaps more importantly, developing economies, these aspects of the science here is so critical. I mentioned in the introduction, human trials in the summer. Why wait so long? Because I know you've done animal trials already. And clearly, the whole world is desperately hoping that that we can accelerate the science as quickly as possible.</s>PAYNE: Absolutely. Our animal trials were very successful. We had 100 percent sero-conversion in the animals we tested at very, very low doses, so highly encouraging. We're cautiously excited about the data and we need to get this into human beings as soon as possible. We're engaged in manufacturing the vaccine as we speak, and we aim to ship that in June. And then as soon as possible, thereafter, we can initiate the trial. So, if we can replicate the results that we just saw in animals, this would be a very big deal. And we're excited to move into that potential.</s>CHATTERLEY: Give us a sense of timing, then, including the time it takes to do the human trials to analyze the data, to decide, get approval, perhaps to really ramp up the manufacturing of this. When could we see it on the market and being used more widely?</s>PAYNE: Well, it Julia, that's a great question. It's a fair question. People always want to know when we can get this, you know, to publicly distribute it, so it's important to -- well, after a human being would be injected, we'd have to measure the antibody titers within a period of time because again, this is a single shot vaccine that won't take a long time to evaluate efficacy and safety in the clinic. So, you know within 30 days after we initiate clinical trials, we'll have some very early data to share and hope we'll start to see some of the data that we expect in to what degree it will match what we've seen in animals, then that doesn't take very long. Measuring antibodies is an easy thing, and it's not just antibodies. We have to make sure it's the correct antibodies, the neutralizing antibodies, the antibodies that protect or protect the individual from the COVID-19 virus itself. So, this does not take a very long time. Our first trial is in 76 people. That's not a large number. We are including the elderly, and we hope to get a very clear idea of the dose right away. Once we lock in the dose and confirm that it is a very low single shot vaccine, then we just engage in manufacturing. And thankfully, our process is very scalable. We've engaged Catalent recently and did a press release on that. They're one of the world's largest, most efficient manufacturers, and they will help us in the ability to get hundreds of millions of doses annually, is what we're hoping to live into with them. And so, I believe, I addressed your question, though. It will take, you know, approximately 30 days after initiating the trial to start to see early data in the very first people that are injected with our vaccine.</s>CHATTERLEY: I was just thinking there because the missing piece of this is that it was the Singaporeans that came to you in January and said, look, we like what you're doing. We want you to scale up. They gave you investment and if you succeed, the Singaporean population get the first batch of doses, but when we're talking about hundreds of millions potentially of manufacturing. That's fine because it's actually a relatively small country. Are you free to sign manufacturing deals with the likes of Pfizer, Merck, potentially here in the United States that have got real manufacturing capacity? Because the global population clearly is billions.</s>PAYNE: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of good thoughts there. The Singapore government and Duke NUS Medical School in Singapore, approached us in January of this year, and we've made great progress with them. And you're right, Singapore is a small country, there's only about five or six million people in that country. And so we can -- we're definitely looking to make more impact outside of Singapore with this vaccine. And with respect to partnerships, we're engaged in discussions with multiple government entities here and abroad and also strategic partnerships in some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. And we have to evaluate all of these opportunities. There's fantastic foundations as well that are looking to help the developing countries, and we're in conversations with them as you can appreciate. You take this all together, we're going to learn to -- you and I are going to learn together, you know, the -- you know, which partnerships are going to help us globally distribute this vaccine. But in the initial phase, this is an important distinction, in 2020, we don't -- the purchasers of the vaccines are countries. This is an unusual commercial business model. Our customers are few and you have a small number of countries that can afford to stockpile a vaccine and initiate this process early. And the distributors are going to be the military for example. So countries are the buyers and the military are the distributors, and that's an unusual model and that's what we're heading into for this year. But next year or in 2022, having a partnership with a global distributor in a more traditional sense is more likely at that time. But in terms of right now, you know, we need to address the needs of countries that want to gain access and rights to our vaccine as soon as possible, and help us with funding the stockpiling initiatives for these countries, and then we can provide a very simple single shot vaccine that is readily distributed and easily, you know, logistically easy to distribute to distribute for these relative countries. So that we're headed in the near term to make sense.</s>CHATTERLEY: And at relatively lower cost. Yes. I mean, you've just pointed out how many barriers have been broken here in terms of innovation, speed, business model, who's buying, who's distributing. Joseph, keep in touch, please, because we'd love to check back in with you and with your progress. Thank you for all your work and for your team's work, too. Joseph Payne there. Great to chat with you and hear what you're doing.</s>PAYNE: Thank you, Julia.</s>CHATTERLEY: Thank you. We'll keep our fingers crossed.</s>PAYNE: Appreciate it.</s>CHATTERLEY: All right. Stay with us. We're back after this.