Let's drop the world leaders thing. Too many of them are sociopaths anyway. Getting back to the Bell Potter report and the reason we are all invested in Imugene ...
It's interesting that the Bell Potter report entirely omits/overlooks B-Vaxx.
Quote: "The company now has two clinical stage assets with a third to follow shortly." From my reading of it, they are only counting Her-Vaxx and PD1-Vaxx as the "clinical stage projects" - with CF-33 "to follow." However B-Vaxx is also already well into a Phase 2 trial.
Also interesting that they entirely omit/overlook the Mimotope technology itself, which was used to develop Her-Vaxx. Imugene has the world wide licence to use the Mimotope tech, and that technology potentially allows them to produce other B-cell vaccines which mimic (like Her-Vaxx does with Herceptin) the same immunological mechanism of any successful/validated monoclonal antibodies. In effect, the Mimotope tech gives Imugene the potential to crank out an ongoing pipeline of drug candidates which address validated immune-oncology targets. (ie they are not throwing darts blindfolded here. Her-Vaxx was always likely to work, because it mimics Herceptin - which was already known to work).
If you go back to Feb 2018, Imugene already had a B-Cell PD1 vaccine in early stages of development, derived using the Mimotope platform through their partnership with the Medical University of Vienna team who invented Her-Vaxx:
https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2995-01949418-3A487502?access_token=83ff96335c2d45a094df02a206a39ff4 The only reason this didn't progress is that - around the same time - they became aware of Pravin Kaumaya's work at Ohio State University. Prof K had his own B-Cell vaccine, not all that dissimilar to Her-Vaxx, already in Clinical trials - and he also had a PD1 B cell vaccine pretty much "ready to go." With some extremely effective negotiation Imugene did a deal with Prof K to licence his entire B cell portfolio - including the B-Vaxx vaccine AND his well advanced PD1 vaccine which we now know was PD1-vaxx - "FDA IND-ready PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor B-cell vaccine for Phase 1 trial":
https://cdn-api.markitdigital.com/apiman-gateway/ASX/asx-research/1.0/file/2995-01988601-3A494688?access_token=83ff96335c2d45a094df02a206a39ff4By licensing PD1-vaxx Imugene leapfrogged ahead by at least 18 months and the Vienna team's PD-1 candidate was no longer needed.
Mind you - the Vienna team is still working on it, and they have good evidence that it would work:
https://www.biospace.com/article/-medical-university-vienna-presents-positive-new-data-on-one-of-imugene-s-lead-pd-1-mimotope-cancer-vaccines-at-the-american-association-for-cancer-research-2019-annual-meeting/The Vienna team have tested their PD1 vaccine in mice, both on it's own and in combination with Her-vaxx - and the results were excellent. You can read all about it here:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.00895/fullThe Mimotope technology is still licensed for Imugene to use and, if Imugene so chooses, they can use it to produce an ongoing pipeline of B-cell therapies. Sure - the lead times are long - that's why they licensed Prof K's portfolio of B-cell drugs - his work was more advanced along the road to clinical trials. But note that part of Leslie's excitement around the Her-Vaxx result is that it validates their entire B-Cell platform. As she said in her interview with Andrew Scott on 23 November: through their B-cell approach, compared to blockbuster drugs like Herceptin "we can do it a kinder, gentler, better way" and "the whole entire platform now has been validated by this."
So - nothing wrong with the Bell Potter report and far as it goes, but my personal view is that it doesn't go far enough. They are just looking at Imugene's individual drugs in isolation with :
- no value attached to the flow on effect of the Her-Vaxx trial success to their other B-cell drugs - effectively "de-risking" the whole portfolio by demonstrating that B-Cell immunotherapy really does work
- no value given to B-vaxx
- no consideration of the combination therapy options they now have - eg for Her-Vaxx with PD1-vaxx, or either of them in combo with the CF-33 oncolytic virus
- no value given to the Mimotope tech itself and Imugene's ability to crank out an ongoing pipeline of drug candidates which mimic already successful MaB's.
Anyway - that's it from me. Hope everyone is having a happy day!
Cheers
Dave
