01 Apr 5 Things you must know about IGM Biosciences!
Collaboration Agreement with Sanofi
IGM Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: IGMS), a biotechnology company leveraging its expertise in Immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies, announced an exclusive worldwide collaboration agreement with Sanofi (NASDAQ: SNY). The agreement is for developing and commercializing IgM antibody agonists against six initial targets, three in oncology and three in immunology/inflammation.
The Company will receive $ 150 million upfront payment, with a potential to receive $940 million in development and regulatory milestones per oncology target, subject to certain conditions. In addition, for each immunology/inflammation target, the Company stands to receive $1,065 million in aggregate development and regulatory and commercial milestones. The Company will split profits from any of the candidates reaching the commercialization stage in a 50:50 ratio.
IGM Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: IGMS)
Market Cap: $868.97M; Current Share Price: 26.73 USD
Data by YCharts
Fred Schwarzer, Chief Executive Officer of IGM Biosciences, commented,
“Sanofi is a global leader in the development and commercialization of innovative therapies, and we welcome the addition of their extensive expertise and resources in expanding and accelerating the development of our IgM antibody platform across multiple areas of high unmet need. This partnership builds on an existing research collaboration with Sanofi and is a key step towards our goal of unlocking the full breadth of potential for this important new class of therapeutics. We are pleased to share this vision with Sanofi and look forward to working together on these six potentially first- and best-in-class programs.”
Sanofi has also expressed interest in purchasing up to $100 million of non-voting common stock in a public financing as per a Company statement.
The Science
IGM claims to have the most advanced program focussed on engineered therapeutic IgM antibodies, which the Company aims to leverage to develop cutting-edge antibodies for treatment of cancer, infectious diseases, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The Company’s approach is to use the power of the IgM antibody, a naturally occurring human antibody that has ten binding units as opposed to the IgG antibody that has only two binding units. This improves the avidity or the binding power of the antibody.
Furthermore, IGM has enhanced the affinity of these binding units and devised an efficient manufacturing process for these antibodies. These antibodies have the potential to bind strongly to difficult and inaccessible targets, bind to multiple targets, create apoptotic signals that result in death of cancer cells and neutralize the ability of viruses to infect cells, leading to greater efficacy and improved clinical outcomes.
The Pipeline
The most advanced candidate in the Company’s pipeline is IGM-2323, an IgM based CD20 x CD3 bispecific antibody T cell engager, intended for the treatment of B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). The Company believes that the candidate has the potential to bind to cancer cells with better avidity compared to conventional IgG bispecific antibodies that possess only one binding unit for CD20. IGM-2323 is currently being evaluated in a phase 2 trial in patients who have failed previous treatments in NHL.
Image Source: Company
The Company is also developing IGM-8444 (DR5) that targets Death Receptor 5 (DR5), a member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily (TNFrSF), for treatment of patients with solid and hematologic malignancies. The candidate’s unique structure enables it to reduce harmful side effects like liver damage compared to IgG antibodies. IGM-8444 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 trial as a monotherapy and in combination with BCL2 inhibitors and SMAC mimetics.
The pipeline also has candidates in preclinical development such as IGM-7354, a targeted IL-15 immune stimulating antibody, for the treatment of patients with solid and hematologic malignancies, for which the Company is planning to file an IND in 2022. IGM-2644, a T cell engaging IgM antibody for treatment of multiple myeloma is also undergoing preclinical studies and IGM is likely to file an IND application in 2022.
Significant Market Opportunity
Lymphoma, a common form of blood cancer occurs when lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell, grow and multiply uncontrollably and manifest as Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). These in turn cause tumors by spreading to other parts of the body such as lymph nodes, spleen and bone marrow.
Lymphocytes are mainly categorized into B lymphocytes (B cells) and T lymphocytes (T cells) with the indolent (slow-growing) B lymphocytes (B cells) leading to Marginal zone lymphomas (MZLs), this accounts for an estimated eight percent of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cases. NHL can be further categorised into chronic lymphocytic leukemia, cutaneous B-cell lymphoma, Cutaneous T-Cell lymphoma. Follicular lymphoma and waldenstrom macroglobulinemia.
The disease manifests in the form of lymph nodes swelling, abdominal pain, chronic fatigue, unexplained weight loss to name a few. The risk factors include use of immunesuppressive medication, HIV/ Epstein-Barr infection/ Helicobacter pylori and old-age.
Image Source: Imbruvica
Globally the non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) market is likely to reach over $9.2 billion by 2020, according to the pharmaletter. NHL accounts for 4% of all cancers in the United States and affected nearly 81,560 people (45,630 men and 35,930 women) in the United States in 2021 according to an estimate.
Financials
The Company had cash and cash equivalents of $229.5 million as of December 31, 2021 as compared to $366.3 million as of December 31, 2020. IGM reported a net loss of $50.6 million, or a loss of $1.50 per share for Q4,2021, as against $24.6 million, or a loss of $0.79 per share, for the same period in 2020. Net loss for FY2021 was $165.2 million, or a loss of $4.93 per share compared to a net loss of $81.4 million, or a loss of $2.65 per share for 2020.
As per its 2022 Financial guidance, IGM expects the full year GAAP operating expenses of $250 million to $260 million including non-cash stock-based compensation expense of approximately $50 million.
On March 29,2022, the Company announced an underwritten public offering of 8,695,653 shares of its non-voting common stock at $23 per share. The total gross proceeds from the offering are expected to be approximately $200.0 million.
Key Takeaways
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
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References
https://investor.igmbio.com/static-files/c90a2574-c64c-4e95-b602-cc38fc319cce
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