Imugene Ltd (ASX:IMU) (OTCMKTS:IUGNF) non-executive director Lesley Russell has elected to exercise options to increase her shareholding in the company to 13.7 million shares.
Between June 29 and July 1, Russell exercised 15 million options at a value of between $0.040 and $0.042 each.
The subsequent 15 million shares have increased the amount held in a direct interest to 13.7 million with a further 10 million options remaining.
Presentation at ESMO World Congress
The company recently presented its HER-Vaxx cancer immunotherapy program at the ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer 2021 annual meeting.
The abstract presentation was entitled ‘Herizon: A Phase1B/2 open-label study of IMU-131 Her2/NEU peptide vaccine plus standard care of chemotherapy with randomisation in phase-2 in patients with Her2/NEU overexpressing metastatic or advanced adenocarcinoma of the stomach of gastroesophageal junction’ updated interim analysis results’.
This presentation expanded on previously presented interim analysis data presented at AACR2021 and demonstrated HER-Vaxx may provide treatment benefits consistent with traditional monoclonal antibodies with a corresponding adaptive immune response without added toxicity.
The ESMO presentation highlights and presents the following new data:
- HER-Vaxx treatment resulted in a 50% Overall Response Rate (ORR) compared to 29% in patients treated with chemotherapy alone. The ORR measures the percentage of patients who responded to treatment with a partial response (PR) or better;
- Treatment with HER-Vaxx clearly demonstrates patients develop high levels of HER2-specific antibodies early in the treatment protocol and are maintained during treatment and maintenance phase with only a few booster injections;
- Tumour response is correlated with the amount of antibody levels. Patients with antibody levels higher than 1050ng/ml received greater than 50% tumour reduction and may serve as a potential biomarker; and
- In contrast to patients on chemotherapy alone, the reduction of tumour size is substantially higher in patients that received HER-Vaxx + chemotherapy.