 Hi everyone, I'm Raif Derrazy and in this video I'm going to cover the very recent announcement of the great results of American gene technologies AGT-103T phase one clinical trial. Don't worry about what all that means just yet I'll explain but it is testing for the safety and efficacy of a potential HIV cure So before we dive right in let me go over a little bit about what American gene technologies is and reading the description from their website It says American gene technologies is a pioneering biotech company headquartered in Rockville, Maryland That's using gene therapy to cure humanity's most deadly diseases American gene is creating the foundation for a fundamentally new approach to medicine much like Apple's iOS platform for the iPhone We're building a gene therapy platform So other scientists can build on its approach to develop new cures much like software developers creating apps for the iPhone This will significantly cut the time and costs of developing new drugs for a variety of diseases So they're not just creating They're not developing cures alone They're developing a platform from which other researchers companies, etc. Organizations can develop cures Making the whole process more efficient. It sounds like okay So into the crux of the video this past Friday June 9th today Saturday, so it was just yesterday for me Jeff Galvin the CEO of American gene technologies announced live on YouTube a Summary of the results of their AGT-103T phase 1 clinical trial as Stated on their website AGT-103T is a single dose autologous cell therapy Delivering gene therapy modified HIV specific CD4 T cells to persons with HIV disease. I know it's a mouthful Here I'll try to break it down a little bit for you. So autologous simply means that it's sample tissue or cells taken from your own body and then that Sample is then reintroduced into your body after it's been modified So CD4 T cells white blood cells have been taken from a person Modified through gene therapy and then injected back into that same person Hoping to create some sort of result So one of the first things that Jeff starts off by saying is that they were able to accomplish both Safety and efficacy in this phase one clinical trial So starting with safety they had seven participants in the clinical trial 100% of them Did not experience any serious adverse health events. So that was like a big Milestone for them to accomplish that and then the second part is efficacy They took out the CD4 cells of these seven participants modified them through gene therapy and then put them back in their respective bodies and the cells did behave the way that They were hoping and expecting They were designed through the gene therapy to actually fight HIV. The problem is with HIV is that it cripples CD4's ability to do its job and actually kills the CD4 cells in our body so they were able to Change the CD4 cells the white blood cells in a way that it was actually able to trigger an immune response an immune Cascade as Jeff phrased it in his announcement and even without having them remove their antiretrovirals from the regimen They were still able to notice an effect that these newly modified CD4 T cells were having on the body and the immune system response So they were super happy with with the results thus far But then they decided to ask the seven participants who would be willing to go off of their ARVs So that they could continue to study the effects of these modified CD4 cells on the body six participants decided to go off of ARV and when they did their They had a normal immune response to HIV When I say normal, I mean a risk a response to HIV Whereas those of us like me if I were to go off ARV my immune system wouldn't respond to normally like it does to other diseases So what happens is the CD4's actually tell the CD8? Cells to attack the virus Usually I'll use myself as an example when I had HIV and I was not on ARV's because I was not diagnosed I didn't know at the time my CD4's were steadily declining and at the same time my CD8 cells were doing nothing because the CD4's were Being killed off and they also weren't telling the CD8's to attack the HIV That's what usually happens But these modified CD4's in these Participants these six participants who agreed to go off of ARVs were behaving in a way that was good The CD4's remained stable They weren't dying off and they were telling the CD8's to attack the virus Then Jeff asked the remaining six participants if they would be willing again to go into ATI or Analytic treatment interruption which just means that they were taking off their normal treatment your normal ARV regimen in order to further study what was going on in their body of the six remaining four participants agreed to do it all four participants had significant viral suppression and immediate immune response Some had a viral suppression as Jeff said of two logs or 100x less virus than what they had in the previous ATI when they were taken off of their ARVs So even a while later, I'm not sure the exact amount of time between the two ATI's Their body was continuing to respond to the virus in a healthy way, which is you know, of course Really positive for their findings There will be an article coming out later this summer that will explain the data They collected as well as their findings and the next step is rolling into phase two pending FDA approval, which they're pretty confident that they'll get there's no reason why they wouldn't and In that they will be optimizing this same protocol So that's that's pretty substantial exciting news. It was seven participants It's not a huge amount of people, but I assume that in phase two they would expand that and I don't know anything about the participants I'm curious to know if it was male female just male, you know, what was their ethnic backgrounds things like that a lot of times in these Studies and clinical trials There is a lack of diversity in that sense, so I'd be interested to know more about that Maybe that's something we'll get in the Published data later this summer Okay, and then the next big announcement that Jeff via American gene technologies made was that they're rolling out a completely new Company called ad immune. I'll put the logo up here So you can see that and it's entirely separate from American gene technologies and its purpose Solely is to focus on therapies that treat and cure HIV Whereas AGT addresses multiple different kinds of diseases ad immune will be focusing 100% of its energy and its resources on HIV cure research Cool, so it'll be really interesting to see how that develops to I've been following you can see find their socials On social media they created accounts for ad immune on most social places I'll link those down in this description below so you can find that there as well as well as American gene technologies And then that way hopefully you can follow along just as I am and then once they announced the new company ad immune They've then focused on a bit of time on in new investment opportunities They are partnering with an investment firm based in New York called 10x capital whose CEO is Hans Thomas The implication is that once institutional investors are interested Which they are at this point as evidenced by 10x capital when it willing to partner with them they're you know a big investment firm that's on Wall Street, and I know that they're listed on the Nasdaq and Once that happens you get institutional interest It's a good sign of the sentiment that investors Perceive that there's a viable product here that at some point in the near future There can be there's profit to be made and I know I know can be an uncomfortable topic to address financial incentives when it comes to something like HIV and The fact that it's been a source of so much pain and heartache and trauma for so many millions of people around the world but It's important to acknowledge and be aware that companies put in Years and years sometimes decades of research experimentation and resources into their work and they should be compensated for that Without some kind of financial incentive private companies wouldn't be able to stay in business Yes, the you know the US government and nonprofits could Potentially finance something like that, but for a private company to do that They need to be able to have financial incentive So I'm all for it. I think it's great. It's good news. I do as always want to stress a bit of cautious Hopeful optimism, you know, it's easy to kind of let the cart get in front of the horse, especially when it's something that you Are personally invested in you know it impacts millions of people around the world and it's it's very emotional for a lot of us And like I said, so many people have an experience trauma when it comes to HIV So the idea of a cure it's easy once you find this little morsel of hope to kind of jump on that and get overly excited and and forget that you know a lot of a lot of these things Don't necessarily pan out or they may pan out But it's gonna take probably a lot longer than we hope it would that's just the reality of it But that doesn't mean that we can't celebrate and be excited about the milestones along the way and speaking of milestones Adamine actually has some milestones listed on their website They had a countdown from like 10 to 0 and we've been through I'll show you 1098 here Starting with the clinical trial being allowed by the FDA then phase one began and then the first participant enrolled in October of 2020 and then we moved into Milestone seven which is the first product passes release Testing and then six the first patient was infused with their own modified CD4s Five three patients with no serious adverse events DSMB accelerates trial and then four first five patients show critical efficacy Markers it's kind of cool that they're showing the progress as it as it goes along and then here upcoming milestones first human efficacy phase two approval phase two completed and then By the way, if you hear snoring, that's dookie snoring next to me And then finally zero biologics license agreement You can check that on their website. I'll have links like I said down below. You can check out Adamine You can check out American gene technologies Head up their socials Follow them So you can stay up to date on the latest Last year. I did actually Jeff the CEO of AGT invited me on his channel for an interview So you can see that on their YouTube channel. I'll put a link to that in the box down below as well Also, let me know if you're interested in having Jeff Galvin on for an interview. He's the CEO of American gene technologies I think he's also Leading the charge on Adamine as well. So I'll bring him on. We'll do an interview. We could talk about AGT We can talk about Adamine. We can talk about these latest findings with the clinical trial Whatever other questions comments you guys might have please put them in the comments below I'll take a look. Maybe I'll include it in the interview and I'll also put a link to the official announcement that he did on YouTube that link will be found below as well Okay, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this little announcement update video I would like to do and I'm working towards wanting to do maybe weekly news updates and just kind of aggregate a bunch of The latest HIV news that I find online through articles reddit, etc. And Present them in a weekly video. That's that's a big lift for me It's a big goal, but I'm letting you know That's a goal that I'm working towards it might start out that I'll do it once every month or once every couple weeks Whatever, but the goal is to to work up to doing that once every week So we kind of keep this conversation rolling. Alright like this video if you like to subscribe if you haven't already hit that bell You know what to do share this with anybody who might find this exciting useful Hopeful or reassuring and I'll see you guys in the next one. Cheers