Why is the Immutep (ASX:IMM) share price dipping today?

The Immutep (ASX:IMM) share price slipped today after the company posted an update about one of its clinical trials. Here's what we found out.

Gretchen Kennedy

Gretchen grew up in a small Connecticut town where she learned to read The Wall Street Journal as part of the grade six enrichment program. She moved to Australia in 2002, earned a Master of Arts (Professional Writing) and went on to spend eight years writing on Wall Street. In June 2018, Gretchen returned to Australia and has since developed a keen interest in all things ASX. In December 2020, she started writing for the Motley Fool. Gretchen's usually writing something, reading a book or chasing her dogs around.

Published March 5, 2021 12:39 pm AEDT

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.

A doctor or medical expert in COVID protection adjusts his glasses, indicating growth or strong share price movement in ASX medical, biotech, and health companies. — Image source: Getty Images

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.

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