It's not actually the case, mate.
1. IMU will have to pay AUD $40M to Precision in milestone payments between now and first patient dosed in a registrational trial. That's a third of the current MC.
2. The Vaxinia and OASIS trials have blown completely out of expected timeframes. Recruitment is slow for Vaxinia because Cholangiocarcinoma is rare, and OASIS is slow because CF33 is a failed/failing molecule, onCARlytics preclinical data is weak, and there are literally hundreds of other phase 1 advanced solid cancer trials to compete with for patients.
3. The market size for Azer-cel is considerably smaller than what IMU management have quoted (which also assumed 100% market penetration and matched autologous CAR T pricing).
4. The patient population for Azer-cel is niche, which heavily impacts recruitment speed. I think 3 years is a solid assumption on timelines, though it is probably going to take much longer. IMU are not through phase 1b yet and they have not received feedback from the FDA regarding a registrational trial. This could take some time and may not happen.
5. The patents for Azer-cel, Vaxinia, and onCARlytics are evaporating the longer that these trials go on. None of the programs are through phase 1 and they all have less than 15-years of patent life remaining.
6. Speaking specifically to onCARlytics and Vaxinia (though, it could also include Azer-cel) - IMU have not addressed the fact that these programs will be competing with standard of care drugs. This is a huge commercial risk factor that needs to be answered by clinical data. It is impossible to evaluate the likelihood of success establishing a foothold in a competitive market without the ability to compare directly to that market.
7. If by some miracle there is positive clinical data that pushes the SP north, Susquehanna have full autonomy to sell back down to a base price of 1.9c per share.
To progress Azer-cel alone requires a minimum of $70M raised (or over 50% of the current MC) in the short term for a small, niche market. This is the current climate for IMU, and it is dire.
(20min delay)