Hey Wat,A couple of questions if I may:When you say:- 'Facility...

Hey Wat,
A couple of questions if I may:

When you say:- 'Facility Purchased' do you mean we own it or is it leased for a period of time? What's the difference in light of the cost to IMU?

IMO part of the Imugene plans when negotiating with Precision was the strategic move to acquire the lease to the 32,800 square foot GMP manufacturing facility in North Carolina, including drug material for completion of their Phase 1b clinical trial, in addition to the acquisition of an experienced cell therapy and manufacturing team of approximately 50 personnel. The cost is ongoing as with any lease or employment arrangement hence IMO although the acquisition would have surely required consideration, in the overall Imugene precision deal, the lease and accompanying employment costs are ongoing. To the best of my knowledge they are a variable expense for Imugene moving forward as opposed to a fixed cost.

- 'but simply a sniff of an FDA approval for their Car T’s, that brought Big Pharma to the table.' - where are those CAR T's now? Have they developed them further or are they just acquiring them?

In answer to your where are they now? question, both are earning their ultimate acquirers hundreds of millions of dollars on an annual basis, with solid CAGR strength in the Car T sector adding to their value. Should they as predicted continue to obtain broader geographic coverage in conjunction with additional FDA approvals, both Car T companies and indeed their products, whilst apparently expensive at the time, would be viewed as shrewd buys by their acquirers today.

You could analyse both companies CAR T's for a week, though some more information on both companies and their drugs, having sold respectively for approximately $10 billion USD each a few years ago (see my post yesterday) is herein for those interested:

Kite Pharma today

thanks to https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/5675638/car-t-cell-therapy-competitive-landscape-2023

Kite, today is a Gilead Company, with more approved CAR T indications to help more patients than any other company. The goal is to fundamentally change the way people think about cancer treatment by pushing the boundaries of what is possible with cell therapy - using genetically modified immune cells to target tumors. Its industry-leading cell therapy technology uses the power of a person's own immune system to target and attack their tumours. This is accomplished through the use of genetically modified T cells that can increase the number of tumor-specific T cells and strengthen the body's ability to kill certain types of cancer cells.

Kites KTE-X19 (now Tecartus)

In July 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to Tecartus (brexucabtagene autoleucel, formerly KTE-X19), the first and only approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

Tecartus® (brexucabtagene autoleucel) sales increased 21% year-over-year to $88 million in the second quarter of 2023, primarily driven by increased demand in R/R adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia (“ALL”) and R/R mantle cell lymphoma (“MCL”).

Juno Therapeutics

Having purchased Juno Therapeutics Celgene themselves were acquired in 2019 by Bristol Myers Squibb. At the time buying Celgene gave Bristol more cancer drugs at a time when its immuno-oncology portfolio struggled to keep up with rival Merck's.

Juno Therapeutics JCAR107

Juno’s FLAGSHIP CAR T therapy JCAR017’s morphed into Bristol Myer Squibb’s product Breyanzi. JCAR017 is currently in a randomized controlled clinical trial (JCAR017-BCM003) with a total of 184 patients (including nine Japanese patients) with relapsed or refractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Off the back of JCAR017’s excellent safety record Breyanzi was approved in Japan in March 2021 for the treatment of patients with R/R large B-cell lymphoma and R/R follicular lymphoma after two or more lines of therapy. Breyanzi is also approved in the U.S. as second-line therapy, and in the U.S., European Union, Switzerland and Canada for relapsed and refractory LBCL after two or more lines of systemic therapy. Bristol Myers Squibb’s clinical development program for Breyanzi includes clinical studies in earlier lines of treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory LBCL and other types of lymphomas and leukemias.

For the full year 2022, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) reported its chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapyBreyanzi pulled in $182 million, up $87 million from the year prior.

Azer-cel - a promising acquisition for Imugene based upon recent CAR T sales and the power of Cf33/Oncarlytics

If Tecartus and Breyanzi are any guide then one can quickly ascertain Azer-cel is potentially a screaming buy for Imugene, particularly with the added benefit of being able to bolt it onto Cf33/Vaxinia and their Oncarlytics arm, in an endeavour to obtain significant market share in the lucrative solid tumour market. In the interim there is no doubt money to be made with the drugs continuing blood cancer focus if the FDA grants a registration trial approval. I'm confident the team at Imugene would have ensured Azer-cel ticks all the right boxes as an Oncarlytics combination partner from an FDA perspective. Oh and thats right, we can now manufacture the drug ourselves.

Thanks for your insight.

No thank you for reading my posts and taking an interest..

DYOR Opinions only