IMV Inc IMVIF

Speculating on the biomarker

[PoorOpinion]

(just some fun, I'm sure there are lots of possible candidates, I'd be happy to hear other peoples guesses)

My guess -VEGF

Here's what we know from the PR and CC

1) Its not ovarian specific, present in other solid tumours.
2) Subset of the population, 30% of trial population but more in the general population.
3) It seems to be an already well understood biomarker, Fred hinted that IMV would not need to do development work on assays etc, they already exist
4) It correlates with the MOA of DPX (from PR), he hinted to one of the analyst that once revealed it would be very obvious.

VEGF is an agiogenesis promoting factor, it stimulates blood vessel growth in the tumour. DPX needs blood vessels to deliver T-cells to the tumour, that would be a very direct relationship to the MOA of dpx (4), maybe too obvious. VEGF is known to be present in high levels in some ovarian cancer patients and many other cancers (1). Its present in the blood in low levels in healthy people and in either low or high ranges in ovarian cancer patients so high level VEGF would represent a subset of patients unfortunately I cant yet find any stats on that (2???). Given its known presence in Ovarian cancer I imagine it was almost certainly on the list of biomarkers for IMV to screen. Its a very well studied cancer biomarker and many assays for its detection already exist (3). It ticks all the boxes imo.

It would be a very interesting if VEGF was the biomarker. It's implicated in so many solid tumours and so well studied that understanding the addressable market would be very clear, it would add value if it turned out to be the one. Its presence in ovarian cancer is also a strong indicator of poor outcomes for patients so identifying this as the subgroup would be a positive for breakthrough status (as these patients have the worst therapeutic options atm) and would make the response seen so far in the small number of patients even more remarkable. When I started looking into this I thought well its just the biomarker, doesnt matter which one it is but I think there are some, like VEGF, that add a little more to the story so its going to be interesting exactly which biomarker it turns out to be.


As I said this is just a bit of academic fun, its just a guess, there are plenty of other possibilities. This is speculation only.