Stock of California Firm Jumps 17 Percent on News of Golden State Award

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ImmunoCellular Therapeutics’ stock price shot up 17 percent today in the wake of formal approval of a $20 million award from the California stem cell agency for a clinical trial involving a rare brain cancer.

The price has been climbing since last week when the California Stem Cell Report first disclosed that the company was set to secure the funding for the phase three clinical trial, the last step before widespread commercialization.

In an interview today, Andrew Gengos, president of the Calabasas, Ca., firm, confirmed that the trial is expected to cost $40 million to $50 million. The company has said it will add $34.4 million to the $20 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the agency is formally known.

Gengos said the five-year trial is expected to get underway in November with the enrollment of the first patients. He said it will probably start in the United States with expansion to Canada and Europe. About 400 patients are expected to participate.

ImmunoCellular has not had any revenues since 2010. Asked about the source of the $34 million, Gengos said the company had $31 million on hand at the end of June with no debt. He added that the company can access additional cash through the sale of more stock.

In reponse to a question, Gengos said he first became aware of the possibility of funding the clinical trial with the help of CIRM as the result of a conversation with a colleague at the J.P. Morgan health care conference in San Francisco last January.

Gengos followed up by asking an ImmunoCellular co-worker to look into the process. As the result, the company made its initial application which CIRM sent back with suggestions for improvement. In the second review, reviewers voted 9-0 to fund the project.

Gengos told the CIRM board today that the trial would take five years to complete.

“Frankly, this time period is outside the interest of most public market investors in terms of their investment horizon and therefore, in their eyes, handicaps our project compared to other projects that can execute in a shorter time frame.

“The result is that investment capital is hard to come by for these types of promising and highly innovative therapies when the investment horizon is long, and a small company without product revenues is at the helm.”

Gengos continued,

“I do not think it is an overstatement to say that without CIRM’s support, this program would not go forward. California’s innovative biotechnology community needs institutions like CIRM. Clearly – we need CIRM. Brain cancer patients need CIRM.”

Here is the text of the company’s press release today.

Here is the text of Gengos statement to the CIRM board.

   Statement by CEO of ImmunoCellular to CIRM board Sept. 24, 2015

California Stem Cell Agency Backs Calabasas Firm with $20 Million in Search for Brain Cancer Therapy

Directors of the California stem cell agency today unanimously approved a $20 million award to help boost into the marketplace a therapy for a rare brain cancer known as glioblastoma.

The funds will go to ImmunoCellular Ltd, a tiny, publicly traded firm based in the Los Angeles suburb of Calabasas, which has close ties to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Andrew Gengos, president of the firm, told the directors,

"Without (the agency's) support this program would not go forward. Brain cancer patients need CIRM."

It is the second, phase three clinical trial for the agency, formally known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The $3 billion research enterprise is pushing to develop a commercial therapy before funds for new awards run out in about four years.  (See here for the CIRM  press release on the award.)

CIRM is also proposing to award $400 million over the next four years to support clinical level research and participate in 65 clinical trials.

The ImmunoCellular trial is expected to produce preliminary results by the end of 2019.  The trial will involve 414 patients and  begin recruiting in November of this year. (See here for recruitment and other information.)

Despite some caveats, the agency’s blue ribbon reviewers concluded that the proposed therapy “could become a new standard of care and extend survival of glioblastoma patients.” Other firms, however, are competing in the field, the reviewers noted. Earlier this year, reviewers approved the award during closed door proceedings on a 9-0 vote, an action that virtually assured formal approval today.

Immunocellular’s closing stock price has risen 13 percent since the California Stem Cell Report disclosed on Sept. 17 that the firm was set to receive the $20 million award. Today, the stock opened at 48 cents. At the time of this writing today it stood at 52 cents.

Information presented to the CIRM board today did not indicate potential cost of therapy to consumers. Nor did the information discuss the financial condition of the company other than to state that it would provide $34.4 million in co-funding. There was little discussion this morning of the application by the CIRM board. 

The company’s filings with the Security and Exchange Commission show that the firm has reported no revenues since 2010 and a loss of $9.4 million in 2014. It reported that it had $23.2 million in cash or cash equivalents in 2014. In February of this year, it reported raising $14.6 million from Roth Capital Partners, LLC.

Sabby Healthcare Master Fund, Ltd. and Sabby Volatility Warrant Master Fund, Ltd., both registered in the Cayman Islands, hold 9.22 percent of the company’s stock, according to company documents.

Capital Ventures International, another Cayman Island firm, owns 5.54 percent. John S. Yu, chairman and chief scientific officer of the ImmunoCellular and a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai, owns 6.65 percent. The CIRM governing board has one member from Cedars-Sinai who was not permitted to vote on the award.

ImmunoCellular has six fulltime employees, Gengos said today.

The public summary of the review said,

“In the initial review of this application, reviewers were enthusiastic as glioblastoma represents a serious unmet medical need. Additionally, the applicant presented strong preclinical and clinical data to support the proposed Ph3 registration trial and there was a reasonable plan to obtain regulatory approval of the proposed therapeutic. However, reviewers had feasibility concerns regarding the applicant’s ability to enroll the trial and maintain the reagent supply chain to support manufacturing of the product.

“Reviewers also had concerns with the trial design, which centered around selection of the patient population targeted in the registration trial and the lack of immune monitoring proposed in the trial. The applicant was provided the opportunity to address these concerns in a revised application, and their responses and modifications to the proposal reassured reviewers that the applicant could enroll and conduct the Ph3 trial as proposed and that, if endpoints are met, the trial design could support licensing approval by FDA.”

Brain Cancer Targeted: Calabasas Biotech Firm Set to Win $20 Million in California Stem Cell Funding

John S. Yu, chairman, ImmunoCellular -- Cedars-Sinai video 

Highlights

Second CIRM bet on phase three trial

$34 million in co-funding

Application initially rejected

California’s stem cell agency next week is expected to award $20 million to a tiny California firm to help finance a phase three clinical trial of a therapy for a rare brain cancer.

The move would be the $3 billion agency’s second investment in a phase three clinical trial, the last major hurdle before a therapy can be offered for widespread public use. The first was an $18 million bet this spring on NeoStem, Inc., now known as Caladrius.

The two trials offer the best likelihood of fulfilling -- in relatively short order -- the 2004 campaign promises made to voters when they created the Golden State's stem cell research effort. 

The firm involved is ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Ltd., a publicly traded enterprise headquartered in Calabasas, Ca., a suburb northwest of Los Angeles.  Calabasas is better known for its entertainment personalities, such as the Kardashian family, than biotech.

In addition to the state funds, the trial would be backed by $34.4 million in co-funding, according to the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM), as the agency is formally known. Earlier this year, ImmunoCellular estimated the total cost of the trial could be about $50 million.

The firm's proposed therapy targets glioblastoma, a fast-moving cancer that CIRM said is “resistant to current standards of care."  It has a survival rate of slightly more than one year. Immunocellular said that about 10,000 new patients are diagnosed each year in the United States.

The treatment is called ICT-107. Immunocellular reported on its Web site that the treatment is “an autologous (patient-derived) dendritic cell immunotherapeutic that targets six different antigens (peptides that are tumor markers) associated with glioblastoma.”

The CIRM summary of reviewer comments said that the phase one trial for the treatment produced a “tremendous survival response.” The summary said,

“Though the survival response observed in the Ph1(phase one) trial was not fully replicated in the Ph2 trial, results are supportive of continued clinical development and of the Ph3 trial as designed.”

ImmunoCellular has been around with its current focus since 2006 when it acquired its cellular-based technology from Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. John S. Yu, director of surgical neuro-oncology at Cedars, is listed as the founder of the firm. He is now chairman of the board and chief scientific officer.

The firm has four full-time employees and four part-time, including Yu, according to February 2015 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm said,

“We have a number of consulting agreements for clinical development, regulatory affairs, investor relations and business development. We outsource all of our drug discovery research, process development, manufacturing and clinical development to third parties with expertise in those areas."

ImmunoCellular reports no revenues for the past several years. CIRM said, however, the firm has promised $34.4 million in co-funding for the clinical trial.

In an August closed-door session, CIRM’s scientific reviewers scored the ImmunoCellular application as having “exceptional merit” on a 9-0 vote. 

Ratification of that decision will occur in public next Thursday in a teleconference meeting of the agency’s 29-member governing board, which includes one representative from Cedars-Sinai.

The board almost never rejects a positive recommendation from its reviewers. The agency also does not release the names of successful applicants in advance of a board vote. The California Stem Cell Report identified ImmunoCellular through other means.

The firm's original application was deemed by CIRM reviewers to need improvement on a 1-9-2 vote and was sent back to ImmunoCellular for revision. The August review summary said,

“(R)eviewers had feasibility concerns regarding the applicant’s ability to enroll the trial and maintain the reagent supply chain to support manufacturing of the product. Reviewers also had concerns with the trial design, which centered around selection of the patient population targeted in the registration trial and the lack of immune monitoring proposed in the trial.

“The applicant was provided the opportunity to address these concerns in a revised application, and their responses and modifications to the proposal reassured reviewers that the applicant could enroll and conduct the Ph3 trial as proposed and that, if endpoints are met, the trial design could support licensing approval by FDA.”

The price of ImmunoCellular stock closed at $0.425 today, up nearly one cent. The 52-week high of the stock was $1.03 and the low 35 cents.

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