The Immutep Ltd (ASX: IMM) share price is down 1.59% at the time of writing trading at 31 cents a share. This follows this morning's announcement that Immutep is expanding Part B of its cancer treatment clinical trial.
Let's break down what that means and why it could be moving the Immutep share price today.
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More patients recruited for expanded trial
Based in Australia, Immutep develops novel immunotherapy treatments for cancer and autoimmune disease.
In today's release, the biotechnology company advised that it had recruited 13 more patients with second-line non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) for Stage 1 of the now expanded Part B of its TACTI-002 Phase II trial.
The trial extension follows the recommendation of the data monitoring committee following a preliminary safety and efficacy review. TACTI-002 stands for Two ACTive Immunotherapies.
Immutep is conducting the trial by treating cancer patients with a combination of its eftilagimod alpha product (efti) and Keytruda®, produced by US pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., Inc (NYSE: MRK).
Efti is in clinical development to treat cancer. Immutep has three additional treatments for cancer and autoimmune disease that also are in clinical development.
Immutep's half-year update
Discussing the company's leading efti product in its latest half-year FY21 results, Immutep advised:
Following the encouraging clinical results announced for efti last year, Immutep is in a very robust financial and operational position.
The company has increasing confidence in efti and accordingly, three new efti trials or trial extensions with up to 386 patients in different cancer indications were announced or started during the half year, in addition to its ongoing clinical trials of the product candidate.
Immutep is also working on scaling up efti manufacturing in preparation for potential commercial manufacturing and additional registration trials in multiple indications.
Immutep share price snapshot
Despite positive progress on its clinical trials, the Immutep share price has taken a 20.3% dive over the past month. Year-to-date, it's fallen 24.1%.
The company presently has a market capitalisation of 217.3 million and there are 648.7 million shares outstanding.
