John died on Tuesday after a valiant fight with Motor Neurone Disease. He faced this final challenge with great courage and his usual good humour, and his last years were spent with his family - which brought him great joy. Scancell is forever indebted to John for his chairmanship, which allowed the company to develop and clinically test both the SCIB1 and the Modi-1 vaccines. He was very excited to learn of the promising results of SCIB1 in combination with checkpoint inhibitors in the SCOPE study and remained committed to the development of Scancell products to the end.

Professor Durrant said in tribute: “John was an astute businessman, an excellent chairman and a good friend - he will be sorely missed”.