In regards to the original question; the upscaling could be to...

In regards to the original question; the upscaling could be to show regulators that IMM can exhibit GMP which is usually required as part of approvals, and the other obvious reason is to have enough juice for the many trials planned and happening.

I see IMM playing out like this:
- As the 1st line head and neck trial is open label Merck might want to see a strong trend as patients become evaluable to show efti + keytruda works better than keytruda alone and this could be an acquisition catalyst
- The data for 1st line nsclc is already good enough to warrant a phase 3 rather than a phase 2b so they might go straight to this. The problem here is that Keytruda has broad use in the USA for nsclc patients, I believe as long as the PDL1 status > 1 it can be used. So is there enough incentive to acquire IMM to treat patients with a better combo when Merck is already making enough money from Keytruda in this indication. It raises the ethical question of whether Merck really do want better treatment for patients and will thus go after Efti to treat PDL1 all-comers in combination with Keytruda
- Another issue is, is anybody else besides Merck interested in Efti to create competition for the product? The obvious candidate is BMS as they can truly become the lag3 head honchos
- Does Marc have the guts and backing from those funding the trials to wait on the ph2b in head and neck all the way through hoping the data is statistically significant in the end and also does he have the guts to risk a phase 3 on nsclc all the way through? The binary risk is massive - would it be better to sell the lot and let a big boy take on the risk?
- The other wildcard I just thought of is IMM waiting on data from I think the Efti + keytruda + chemo trial in nsclc to see if this is the treatment regiment to pursue in nsclc rather than just Efti + Keytruda? Surely they only do a late stage trial with one treatment regiment vs standard of care.

There is a lot to consider on this one, just a royal pain in the behind that the market doesn’t recognise all the spanners in the works here.

I will stick with my original tip from day dot : Merck will eventually acquire IMM for all cash like they did VLA due to the data being enough and Marc being a business man and growing tired with running the joint with little SP appreciation and move onto the next venture, much like Malcolm McColl at VLA.