Results.. if only we knew some results.. most of us would assume that results wont come until the end of a trial. We are probably correct. How long does it take for a drug to go from inception to market? 10-15 years. Are we willing to wait that long for results? I think this has a lot to do with the share price. Hype about brilliant drugs got the share price moving. What were we expecting? when reality sets in of the time it will take for these drugs to hit market, its no wonder where we find our selves today. Even though IMU has brilliant drugs in the pipeline, many were hoping for things to move faster than they have or will. LC was showing exuberance, but that was in context of what she was seeing, in context of drugs in trials and her understanding of how long it will take in reality to come to fruition. Many saw exuberance and thought if I buy now I will be rich next year when IMU publicise how the trials are curing cancer! Not going to happen, didn't happen. Unfortunately the hype built more hype and IMU was bought into by many. They then noticed a downtrend months later along with pandemics, wars and US inflation, panicked and sold to protect their fortunes and move it into the next hype train, or back into their bank accounts. The selling started a domino effect and down came the tower with only the steadfast long term investors holding on. I am no trader or stock market specialist, but this is pretty clear to me.
Many are asking why haven't platforms been bought out by big pharma? In my opinion, not selling is a good thing. IF IMU is sitting on brilliant results (which they cannot release publically at this point), and they know they are onto something huge, why would they sell it now for a pittance? Just to appease shareholders? If I were on the board of Imugene I would be feeling for the holders, but it would probably be best to sit on what we have got for as long as possible. The longer the trial plays out, the better and more reliable the results get, and the price you can put on a drug grows exponentially. Why take 1 billion today, when we know it will be 20 billion with some time?
Anyways, back to what I was on about, results. So the way trials work is before anything happens, policies are written. One of these policies is in regard to release of results. It guides the company on what type of results will be released and when. No doubt IMU, city of hope have such policies. Any decent outfit will write the policy and stick to it. Most clinical trial policies are impermeable. Which means evidence accumulated during the trial does not become public until the end of the study. The reason IMU has not released any amazing information about their trials is not because they don't have any. They are being respectful to their policies, to science and they are doing things professionally, by the book.
Why have a impermeable trial? Because you don't want to risk having a permeable one. Having a permeable trial can come with a whole lot of problems. Trials must operate as per their policies. end of story. If the policy says it will release data at this point, even if they have bad data, they must release it. This then causes participants to drop out, less enrolments and biased results. Releasing early data can destroy the study. So, not having data from IMU does not mean the drugs aren't working, it means they are just sticking to the rule book which was written before the trials begun. A good indicator that things are going well with impermeable trials are if they don't end prematurely or stop after initial phases. Something evident with IMU so far.
Something else to note. Generally in clinical trials, we are looking at phase I, II, III and IV. Everything IMU is pre clinical or Phase I (20-80 participants), except for Hervaxx, which has completed phase II. Yes we are getting drugs into humans, but lets just be realistic for a moment. We need these drugs to clear phase 3 (where we really get results of efficacy), then FDA approval, then Phase 4 which involves thousands of participants and can take years to complete. I remember a couple of years ago in a clinical setting seeing a brilliant life saving immunotherapy drug in phase 4 of its trial, still probably chugging along, not yet on market. Whatever your strategy, buy, hold, trade, it seems there is no real rush to make that decision. Many buyers have been fooled, not so much by IMU, but by our selves. We need to take responsibility for that. I don't think its on LC to spell it out for us, google can tell us it can take 15 years for a drug to come to market. Fast track? yeah that exists, but its not going to change it from 15 years to 2 years, that is just not going to happen. I think the real question we should be asking IMU is not to give us results, but maybe to share their clinical trial policies regarding results, what and at what stage are they to be released. If we knew that clearly from the beginning, perhaps we would have a more reliable and realistic guide to inform ourselves as investors on our strategy, and this whole boom bust situation could have been largely avoided.
Unfortunately, I think if IMU does what they are supposed to do, they will release information at the end of each phase according to what their policies allow, and it will leave many investors dissatisfied. Even if they are seeing miraculous efficacy, perhaps that cannot be divulged at early phases of trial, because the goals of those early phases are to study how the drug works, the safety and dosages. All this noise on HC is just that, a giant beast squirming under pressure, but it really doesn't matter because the end game will reveal itself when it is time. When the wind hits IMUs sails again, it will be with some serious force. But lets just keep in mind the time frames here. I for one don't want to look back in 10 years time and wish I hadn't sold.
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