Thanks for sharing
@freebooter43It's great to see articles like this. Precision medicine, like the ones discussed, is touted as the 'new wave' of cancer treatment. This is due to them being distinct from mainstream forms of cancer therapy, like chemo, that are like blanket bombing the body to kill cancer. Therapies such as Keytruda, Herceptin and other monoclonal therapies and, most recently, their ADC counterparts are fetching significant sums (Pfizer's buyout of Seagan for $43 Bil, AbbVie's buyout of ImmunoGen for $10 Bil). This is because they are much further along in their specificity. CAR-Ts go a step further in arming a patient's T-Cells in a way that targets that patient's unique cancer. Although they have made up significant ground towards better cancer therapies, they are still nowhere near as beneficial as CF33 and OnCARlytics have the potential to be.
All precision therapies have a known specific target (Her-2, PD1, PDL1, LAG, the list goes on), which means they are limited in their effectiveness to that particular cancer. If the tumour was to mutate and return, then it's back to the drawing board. Second line, Third Line, and so on..... The Kaplan-Meier survival curve gets worse at each step. I am not saying that they are not worthy or meaningful, far from my belief (a friend of mine with TNBC only this week got the "cancer-free" nod following months of Keytruda/chemo/radio); however, I am highlighting how significant CF33/OnCarlytics is. If it is indeed successful in humans, as Dr Fong says in mice, then its intrinsic value is at least the combined value of all these precision therapies. Let that sink in. That's the play here.
So, in effect, IMU is achieving what all of these precision therapies are attempting to achieve, BUT FOR EVERY CANCER TYPE. Whatever success CF33 has, we can add significant extra value to OnCARlytics as it would mean IMU has something that can seek out any cancer and work towards killing it, as well as the added benefit of coating ANY cancer with the same target. In this instance, CD19. Leslie said this week something to the effect of:
...
" it's a virus that only injects and replicates in cancer cells; we know this because we already have roughly 38-40 patients on, and every single patient has shown with solid tumours that it's replicating, bursts the cells and alerts your immune system" ...
We know that some of those patients were dosed IT and some IV, which means we now know that in all IV patients, once CF33 enters the body, it finds tumours, infects them, replicates, bursts, and then alerts the immune system of the foreign cancer cells. If I were a betting man, I'd be betting on OnCARLytics doing precisely what it's set out to do. How well? That's the question.
IMU is aiming at Bile Duct cancer because it's currently the fastest route to approval. Any further data showing the effectiveness of CF33 in other indications will add to the scope. Assuming the expansion trial hits the mark and CF33 gets approved, it's not unlikely patients with many different cancer types would opt for a shot of CF33 and potential flu-like symptoms versus standard of care and life-changing side effects.
Imugene is an entirely different company from when I first invested; it was only HER-Vaxx that was in the stable, again, a precision therapy, albeit one with little sides and the potential to be more effective than the multiple billion-dollar revenue incumbent monoclonal therapy, Herceptin. But IMU is an entirely different beast, significantly (multiples) larger than HER-Vaxx would have ever been, even accounting for dilution. I still would like to see B-Cell sold, even if only to solidify IMU's ability to continue developing the rest of the suite at speed and without more capital raises, but I am not hung up on it. Anyone who is resentful with management due to HER-Vaxx and lack of deal is 'cutting one nose to spite their face'; IMU has multiple life-altering therapies that are coming to their crescendo seemingly very soon. And I'll reiterate, if successful in what they set out to achieve, "a virus that seeks out and kills all/many tumour types," then the reality is IMU will have the whole cancer market at its feet. It's still a big if, but based on risk to reward, I haven't come across anything close that matches IMU's potential. Based on recent interviews and presentations, Leslie seems like it's a foregone conclusion; now, we/the market, need to see the data to reflect what she seems already to know.
Cheers.
(20min delay)