Imugene (ASX: IMU) shares are up 155% this week, 36% just today. There seems to be a substantial rerating of IMU shares going on - not just a one day leap but a sustained change the general valuation of the firm. This is off the back of their announcement about Phase I trials of their lead drug candidate. Which isn’t in fact a drug, rather a virus which then attacks cancers.
As they say: “Imugene Ltd (ASX:IMU) (OTCMKTS:IUGNF) CEO Leslie Chong talks Proactive through a clinical trial update of its Phase 1 MAST (Metastatic Advanced Solid Tumours) trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of novel cancer-killing virus CF33-hNIS (VAXINIA). Chong says the early positive response data being seen at the mid-dose level in hard-to-treat bile duct cancer suggests that VAXINIA may be a potent anti-cancer drug as IMU interrogates higher dose levels.”
Or as the official announcement has it: “Twenty-five patients were evaluable (received at least their first scan at day 42) and seven patients have their first scan still pending. Of the
evaluable patients the BOR (best overall response) are 1 Complete Response (CR), 1
Partial Response (PR), 16 Stable Disease (SD), showing patients had control and
stability of their cancer and 8 progressive disease (PD) as measured by iRECIST*
and RECIST* criteria.Importantly early results from 6 patients with gastrointestinal cancers who receivedCF33-hNIS alone including 2 colorectal cancer, 2 bile duct, 1 pancreatic and 1 livercancer showed positive treatment effects, with a disease control rate (all CR, PR
and SD) of 75%.”
There’s a reason all these numbers are so small. You only get to test novel cancer treatments on those who have already used up the already approved treatments. So, the patient base upon which the new treatments can be used is pretty small.
Imugene share price from Google Finance
It’s also worth noting that these are Phase I trials. There are likely several years yet of further trials to be undertaken. This is not the precursor to imminent revenue. Also, these results are, while good, not good enough to simply abandon further testing and roll out the treatment to all. They’re good but not that good.
So there’s still a long way to go for Imugene but the basic idea is, at least so far, confirmed. The viral infection does attack those solid tumours. That is value additive but how far will the market take this rerating of IMU shares?
