GeoVax Labs, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOVX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Kelly McKee: Well, again, remember this is an investigator initiated study, and so the sort of operational control of this trial is under the investigator himself. And we are fully informed of progress as the trial proceeds, but as to when specific data will be forthcoming, I can’t answer that at this time.

Kumar Raja: Okay. And with regard to this manuscript you are preparing with the checkpoint inhibitor, what kind of preclinical models are being used there? And also is the expectation like how Gedeptin will be sequenced with the checkpoint? First you’ll use Gedeptin and then followed by the checkpoint inhibitor?

Kelly McKee: Well, so the manuscript is being prepared by our academic collaborators. And this is based on their work in a mouse model – a mouse tumor model. And the specific details of that, I’m not at liberty to disclose, but it will guide the design of our clinical trial. I think you can – we can say that with some – with some confidence.

Kumar Raja: Okay. And mostly this data will be in head and neck cancer models as well as breast cancer models, that’s – my understanding is that accurate?

Kelly McKee: I’m not sure. I haven’t seen the draft manuscript, so I’m not sure exactly what is being put in there, but I do know that, that they have data from at least breast cancer – a breast cancer tumor model and additional tumors, but I’m not sure what additional tumors those are. John Sharkey, do you have that information?

John Sharkey: Yes. Hey Kumar, they – my understanding is they’ve looked at a couple of different tumor types. They’ve looked at a glioblastoma. As Kelly said, they’ve looked at a breast cancer, which ones they’re going to include in this publication we’re just not aware, privy to until we see the first draft of this. They’re in preparation and internal circulation within their institution at the current time.

Kumar Raja: Okay. Okay. And with regard to the head and neck has all the 10 patients been enrolled in the trials? What can you share with regard to that?

David Dodd: No. We’re still a couple of patients short of our target – enrollment target. And I know you’re at – what you really want to know is when we’re going to be a complete enrollment? We’re hoping that that’s going to take place before the end of the year. This is we found this to be a very, very difficult patient population to enroll for a whole variety of reasons, but we’re confident that we’ll be able to close out this study by the end of the year.

Kumar Raja: Great. Thanks so much for taking my questions.

David Dodd: Good.

Mark Newman: Kumar, let me just add, on the CLL study I did want to point out that vaccinations have already begun. It was just recent a couple weeks ago we announced initiation of it, but there’s – there appears to be a strong building, I’ll call it queue of CLL patients interested in this. So the vaccinations have already started and there’s quite a nice screening buildup in the background. And so the concept of this being fully enrolled within six months does not mean it’ll be six months. I mean, we have to monitor the pace of it because it is an investigator initiated trial. And our anticipation is that we will be learning data as we go through and not simply waiting till the full ADR completed.

Kumar Raja: Okay, great.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Jeffrey Kraws, Crystal Research Associates.

Jeffrey Kraws: Thank you very much. Two of my questions were already answered leaving just one. With regard to the CMO4S1 and the Omicron variance this is actually, I would think a technology while COVID has died down given smallpox and some of the issues they’re having in other countries. Are you seeing good response following that data that you presented, showing both the T-cell response as well as an immune response?