RE:RE:24 year oldsorry, for some reason it didn't post the copy of the transript. I'll try again, as follows:
We are learning alongside renewed interest in this whole field of cancer vaccines that DPX-enabled therapies can drive confirmed clinical responses not seen with historical efforts.
So how is it that despite all of this, we have lost so much value in the capital markets, accelerated recently by the sell-off following the DLBCL data release? This is a question we have asked ourselves a lot recently. I can tell you what didn’t drive it, abandonment of IMV position by long-term shareholders in Q4. While the share consolidation in December reduced their holding by 10:1 as it did for every IMV shareholder, including myself, this was not a reflection of significant selling as was misinterpreted by some.
To our knowledge, most of our long-standing institutional investors remain invested in IMV. That said, the market conditions are difficult. Capital is difficult to find and the negative pressure on small companies or small cap companies either. In February of this year, at IO360, Dr. Graff presented an overview of the DPX platform and progress maveropepimut has made in clinical trials. The presentation was really well received and clearly laid out the distinct benefits of our vaccine technology as well as the clinical experience and our complete responders in vitalized to an audience filled with the biggest names in our field, BioNTech, Moderna, Gridstone, Scorpion, Merck, J&J, Regeneron amongst others. Consistent with our disclosure obligations, we issued a press release to highlight these exciting data.
Even though in VITALIZE, we had already seen the same number of CRs in the first handful of patients that we had seen in all of the SPiReL trial, there was a pronounced sell-off of IMV stock. We believe this reflects a fundamental understanding of the purpose of the trial. So let me clarify. The purpose of VITALIZE has always been to confirm and extend the understanding of the clinical benefits seen in the preceding SPiReL trial and then to set the stage for a potential registration trial in these highly refractory DLBCL patients.
As I said earlier, we will soon enroll the first stage of this trial. Once all patients progress through their first scan, we will curate the data presented at the Scientific Cancer Conference and plot the path forward for registration. So how is it that a company with positive clinical data, at least two shots on goal for registration with a platform that is constantly proven to enhance the therapeutic potential across a broad spectrum of mechanisms has a market cap below $10 million? The truth is I don’t have that answer. I look at our peer companies in this field, and I believe their valuations are incongruent with us, often with lead therapies less advanced than maveropepimut and frankly, with a lower probability of success.