Ann: Immutep Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 4C, page-4

G'day Joe,
Two reasons and a gut feeling (the latter is useless of course).
1. Relatlimab - BMS in pole position for first Lag-3 FDA approval in melanoma. BMS are cashed up and may see the opportunity to develop their Lag-3 stable (agonist and antagonist) or possibly take out Immutep completely and thereby gain the pre-eminent focused (pure play) Lag-3 player in the world.
2. Paclitaxel (PTX), sold under the brand name Taxol among others, is a chemotherapy medication used to treat a number of types of cancer. Taxol is made by BMS (see below).
AIPAC phase 3 efti/paclitaxel combo could make sense to partner with BMS. The cost of a P3 trial if we go it alone would cost Immutep circa $30 million.

Scientists isolated paclitaxel, one of the mostly widely used anti-cancer compounds from the bark of the Pacific yew tree in the 1960s. However, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the drug Taxol® was fully developed under the terms of a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Bristol-Myers Squibb.