Immutep interview with CEO Marc Voigt

Immutep CEO Marc Voigt joined for a deep dive on their efforts in cancer.

Immunotherapy drugs like the world’s best-seller Keytruda have revolutionised the treatment of lung cancer, breast cancer and melanoma.

They work brilliantly, but across a number of indications less than 50% of patients respond.

A global research priority across industry and academia is to enhance the effectiveness of immunotherapies for patients who currently do not respond.

Immutep specialises in LAG3, an immune checkpoint molecule that can be activated or supressed, depending on whether the intention is to fire up the immune system to attack a tumor, or alleviate an autoimmune disease.

Immutep’s most exciting program is in lung cancer, where they are working on a large Phase 3 trial with Merck, who markets Keytruda.

Keytruda’s primary patent protection ends in 2028, so the firm is naturally focused on finding combinations that might extend that franchise - and would be a natural acquirer of any company that proved a drug worked in combination.

I’ll leave it to Marc to give a more detailed rundown on the company. Needless to say there are significant trial risks (and opportunities) ahead!

Also on Spotify and iTunes.

Syntara

This week Syntara will read out a key result at 12.30pm on Tuesday. The stock has rallied >3x to 0.70 in anticipation. We participated in capital raisings at 22c and 28c.

The market cap is ~A$100m / US$65m. Our investment was small, but the weighting larger after the rally, so the result will likely affect our December result one way or another.

But for patients and those who developed the drug there is far more at stake.

Best

Michael