The All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is down 0.3% today, but don't blame this surging ASX All Ords share.
The soaring stock in question is clinical-stage biotech company Immutep Ltd (ASX: IMM).
Immutep shares closed on Friday at 27 cents apiece. In morning trade on Monday, shares leapt to 32.25 cents, up 19.4%. After some likely profit-taking, shares are changing hands for 31.5 cents each at the time of writing, up 16.7%.
Here's what's grabbing investor interest today.
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ASX All Ords share rockets on trial results
Investors are piling into the ASX All Ords share after Immutep announced promising survival results have been achieved in a head and neck cancer trial.
The biotech company said there was "an excellent median overall survival" (OS) of 17.6 months in Cohort B of its TACTI-003 Phase IIb trial.
This part of the Phase II study was reported to evaluate Immutep's eftilagimod alfa (efti) treatment in combination with Merck & Co's anti-PD-1 therapy KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) as first line therapy in recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients with PD-L1 expression below 1.
(Quite a mouthful, I know!)
The ASX All Ords share noted that the patients in the trial represent a treatment population with high unmet medical needs.
Immutep also highlighted that efti in combination with pembrolizumab continues to be well-tolerated with no new safety signals. The company said this safety and the latest OS data "build on the encouraging high overall response rate", with multiple complete responses achieved through the immunotherapies' combination.
What did management say?
Commenting on the promising trial results sending the ASX All Ords share flying higher today, Immutep CEO Marc Voigt said, "We are excited to see this strong survival benefit for head and neck cancer patients with such cold tumours."
Voigt added:
Combining these two complementary immunotherapies has led to a 7-fold increase in response rates and a more than doubling of median overall survival as compared to historical results from anti-PD-1 monotherapy.
Driving durable responses that translate into clinically meaningful survival holds tremendous promise for these patients in need of more tolerable and efficacious therapies.
Voigt said there remains a "high unmet need" for the patients enrolled in the trial, "due to the lack of an approved immunotherapy-only treatment regimen and a lack of competitor trials with chemotherapy-free approaches targeting this patient population".
And likely helping spur investor interest in the ASX All Ords share today, Voigt concluded:
Given the strength of the efficacy and safety results generated to date with efti in combination with pembrolizumab, we will meet with regulators to discuss next steps and potential paths to approval.
