The Immutep Ltd (ASX: IMM) share price is pushing higher again on Monday despite the market decline.
At the time of writing, the biotechnology company's shares are up almost 4% to 55 cents.
This means the Immutep share price is now up 25% in the space of a month.
Why is the Immutep share price charging higher this month?
Investors have been bidding the Immutep share price higher in recent weeks following a series of positive updates.
One of those was the announcement of the grant of a patent in China in late August. This patent relates to LAG525, which is a humanised form of Immutep's IMP701 antibody which is out-licensed to Novartis.
The company followed this up a few days later with another announcement relating to its Chinese operations. The release explains that its Chinese partner for eftilagimod alpha (efti), EOC Pharma, is planning to expand its clinical trial pipeline.
EOC Pharma is preparing to initiate a clinical trial of efti in combination with an anti-PD-1 therapy. The new trial builds on the latest promising data presented by Immutep at ASCO 2021 and on previously announced Phase II trial evaluating efti in combination with chemotherapy in metastatic breast cancer patients.
And then finally, earlier this month the company revealed that the last patient has been enrolled and safely dosed in its Stage 2 of Part B of its Phase II TACTI-002 study.
This study is being conducted in collaboration with Merck & Co. It is evaluating the combination of efti with Merck's Keytruda product in up to 183 patients with second line head and neck squamous cell carcinoma or non-small cell lung cancer in first and second line.
Immutep expects to report further data from TACTI-002 at a scientific conference in calendar year 2021 or early calendar year 2022.
Are its shares good value?
Despite the strong gain by the Immutep share price over the last few weeks, one leading broker believes it could still go higher.
According to a recent note out of Bell Potter, its analysts have a speculative buy rating and $1.00 price target on the company's shares.
Based on the current Immutep share price, this implies potential upside of 82% over the next 12 months.
It commented: "We retain Buy (spec). Our hypothetical M&A valuation for IMM is revised to $1.48/sh, which helps ground our DCF valuation. IMM remains one of our key picks in the biotech space for FY22."
