Maxim analyst Jason McCarthy last week raised the firm’s price target on Immutep to $8 from $4 and kept a Buy rating on the shares following the company’s update on its Phase 2b program in metastatic breast cancer. The stock in morning trading is down 9%, or 31c, to $3.18.
Immutep last week reported the first overall survival follow up data from its ongoing Phase IIb AIPAC study evaluating its lead product candidate eftilagimod alpha in combination with paclitaxel chemotherapy in comparison to a combination of placebo and paclitaxel chemotherapy in patients with HER2-negative/HR positive metastatic breast cancer. In the total patient population, first data show that patients in the efti group had an improving overall survival trend with a median survival of 20.2 months compared to 17.5 months for patients in the comparator group, indicating a survival benefit of plus 2.7 months, Immutep announced.
Furthermore, patients with a low monocyte count at baseline reported a median overall survival of 22.4 months compared to 12.9 months in the comparator group. The data around overall survival, particularly in pre-defined subgroups, suggests efti is having a “meaningful and significant impact,” McCarthy told investors in a research note. The analyst factored eftilagimod in metastatic breast cancer back into this model following the data.