Imugene Ltd (ASX:IMU, OTC:IUGNF)'s recent clinical and patent activities have drawn the attention of Roth Capital Partners, which has placed a “buy” recommendation on the clinical stage cancer-focused biotech.
The company has secured a clinical supply deal for its upcoming Phase 1B trial of its PD1-Vaxx asset, and has recently received patent approval for two key cancer-fighting assets – HER-Vaxx in Europe and CF33 in Japan.
Healthy asset pipeline
The broker’s 12-month price target of 71 cents was arrived at by projecting future revenue from IMU’s clinical pipeline, which includes assets such as CHECKvacc in triple-negative breast cancer, HER-Vaxx in advanced HER2+ gastric cancer, and PD1-Vaxx in non-small cell lung cancer.
“Commercial success outside these financially modelled programs would serve as potential upside to our valuation,” Roche Capital Partners said in its report.
The broker also cited COVID-19 headwinds, which might delay clinical progress, and FDA failure to approve as potential risks to its valuation.
Clinical trial supply agreement with Roche
The company has established a new clinical trial supply agreement with multinational Roche to evaluate IMU's PD1-Vaxx in non-small cell lung cancer, the most common and deadly type of lung cancer, in combination with anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody atezolizumab.
The open-label, multi-centre, dose-escalation and expansion Phase 1b trial will enroll patients in Australia and the US to test checkpoint inhibitor resistance using the combination treatment.
Roth Capital Partners’ report said: “We believe that PD1-Vaxx's mechanism of polyclonal antisera generation provides more opportunity to thwart resistance than combination therapy with two different monoclonal antibodies.”
The supply agreement with Roche will last for up to five years, with IMU conducting and funding at least this initial trial. All data generated from trials of this combination therapy will belong to IMU, and all rights to all related inventions and discoveries will belong to both Roche and IMU.
Patents secured in Europe and Japan
IMU has also received two granted patents covering method of composition and method of use in Europe and Japan respectively.
The patents cover HERVaxx, an antigen therapy targeting HER-2 positive gastric cancer, in Europe, and oncolytic virotherapy CF33, which treats metastatic and advanced solid cancers, in Japan.
“On the heels of encouraging clinical efficacy results thus far, we look forward to the next HER-Vaxx results in a subsequent Phase 2 trial,” the Roche report said.