2023-07-24 10:00:53 ET
Summary
- Immatics recently posted updated data and went up a lot.
- IMTX stock is up hugely in the last 4 months.
- The company is developing solid tumor biologics and has a decent cash runway.
Immatics ( IMTX ) is up 66% since I covered it in March. It is another story that I didn't buy it despite liking the stock, because I never figured it would go up so soon. But the stock went up because of phase 1 data. That is a bit of a pleasant surprise, given IMTX is a relatively less-known German stock.
Located in Tubingen, which has one of the oldest universities in Germany, Immatics is a developer of TCR therapeutics. A few years ago, the focus was on cancer vaccines, but today, Immatics is exclusively focused on developing immunotherapies for solid tumors. Their technology combines Adoptive Cell Therapies ((ACT)) with antibody-like TCR Bispecifics, with the ACT having both autologous and allogeneic versions.
Here's the company's pipeline:
Lead asset ACTengine IMA203 (PRAME) is in three phase 1b trials as monotherapy, in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, and with a 2nd-generation asset called IMA203CD8 targeting various tumors. The company has a large facility near Houston for manufacturing its autologous products.
In my previous article, I covered some of their early data. In a phase 1a monotherapy basket trial in 27 patients, the drug was well-tolerated and saw a 45% ORR. In the phase 1b dose expansion cohort A in four different solid tumors, 4 out of 5 patients, or 80%, had a confirmed ORR.
The toxicity profile needs some comment. While the drug was "generally safe and well-tolerated," there were 31 patients out of 32 with cytokine release syndrome or CRS, and cytopenias of between grades 1 and 4 due to the necessary lymphodepletion before treatment. There were also low to moderate ICANS or Immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome in some patients. However, the cytopenia was transient and manageable, and like I said, an unavoidable part of this treatment module. The CRS and ICANS were transient, were not dose-dependent, meaning they did not increase with dose, and thus did not cause limiting maximum tolerated dose; nor did they lead to treatment discontinuations. Thus, the safety profile was not a surprise.
This was roughly where it was 4 months ago when I covered it.
In May, the stock climbed 30% in a single trading day after the company announced updated interim data from an ongoing Phase 1b trial for its IMA203 TCR-T monotherapy in heavily pre-treated patients with solid tumors as a last-line option. The data was from 11 patients in recurrent and/or refractory solid cancers in the dose expansion Cohort A. 6 out of 9 patients saw a confirmed response at month 3, which is a marginal improvement from 64% to 69%, the former being data they saw at week 6. In numerical terms, this was from 7 out of 11 patients at week 6. The company did not divulge why the n reduced from 11 to 9 between 6 weeks and 3 months. This also appears to mean that one patient with an unconfirmed objective response did not convert to a confirmed response.
The more granular data is where it gets interesting.
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At data cut-off, 5 of 7 responses remain ongoing:
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2 cPRs (cut. & uveal melanoma) ongoing at 9+ months
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1 cPR (cut. melanoma) ongoing at 6+ months
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1 cPR (ovarian cancer) ongoing at ~3 months
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1 PR (synovial sarcoma) ongoing at 6+ weeks
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Thus, there were no CRs, but there were a number of confirmed PRs, and median duration of response was not reached (min 1.3+ months, max 8.8+ months) at a median follow-up of 8.5 months. The AE profile of this set of patients was actually slightly better than the previous one, with no ICANS and no high-grade (Grade 3 or higher) CRS. Like before, there was no dose-dependent increase in CRS.
The company will present the next "data update and pathway towards registration-directed trials planned to be set out in 4Q 2023." This could well be a registration-directed phase 2.
Immatics' core expertise is in PRAME targeting, and a number of companies like Immunocore, Adaptimmune, and even Biontech are developing PRAME directed therapies. Immunocore has a phase 1 trial ongoing, while the other two are in preclinical stages. Biontech paid a small company $29mn to absorb their PRAME program. PRAME, or Preferentially Expressed Antigen in Melanoma, is a validated and prevalent solid tumor target.
Financials
IMTX has a market cap of $931mn and a cash reserve of $389mn. R&D expenses were €27.6 million ($30.0 million) for the three months ended March 31, 2023, while G&A expenses were €9.6 million ($10.4 million). At that rate, they have enough cash to last them well into 2025.
75% of the company is owned by smart money, while retail holds the remaining 25%. I prefer this sort of distribution because while smart money (supposedly) does its due diligence better, retail interest makes a stock "popular." Too much fund holding makes a stock less liquid in the short term, while too much retail holding gives one the impression that smart money does not find the stock a smart investment.
Bottom Line
I am liking IMTX more and more. I now wish that in March I had liked it as much as I do now, because then I would have been 66% richer. But that bird has flown, and now that we gain more clarity on the program, I am going to have to wait for a better price to eventually get in. If the Q4 update is solid, I may just do that.
For further details see:
Immatics Is Increasingly Becoming Interesting