# Immunocellular Therapeutics (IMUC)



## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

This is a strock that I previously mentioned in another thread where I was laughed at for saying they were about "to rock the world".

Well the world is wobbling just a touch today:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/im...ciety-of-clinical-oncology-meeting-2012-05-31

This is a major breakthrough in a new era of immune-system mediated therapeutics against cancer. Excellent phase one data is far out of the norm from the usual results of Glioblastoma Mulitforme which is a horrific type of brain cancer that usually leaves people dead within a year of diagnosis but they are reporting a substantial portion of patients still alive at 5 years. Phase 2 is underway with 213 patients enrolled but it'll be awhile before any major results will come from that one.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

For the record, I did not laugh, and in fact, I have a keen interest in pharma stocks. 

What others and I were objecting to, was not your interest & optimistic opinion & review of IMUC, but your exaggerated language.

I see no new press releases on the website, so I'm assuming the increase is due to the NYSE listing?

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=BW&date=20120525&id=15153219


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## Dopplegangerr (Sep 3, 2011)

Almost a 20% run up today. Thats a nice gain, I dont own any but good for you PRMEdmonton


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

edmonton i thought we all said we liked IMUC. We were just not so crazy about some of your resource picks ... each:


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

I was just giving an update on a stock that we had talked about before but decided to give it its own thread.

If they knock this one out of the park in phase 2 they could skyrocket.

The big potential is that they have acquired patents or IP on a number of these cellular markers for cancer stem cells that deal with much more common cancers like ovarian, colorectal and pancreatic cancer.

The NR is going to be coming formally soon after their presentation is done at the oncology conference that is ongoing. The article I posted was a summary of their poster board presentation at the conference. The reaction to that poster board is what has sent the stock soaring.


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

Yes, HP, I know you think Argex is a terrible company that will go nowhere but that is just one of many small caps I have been investing in.

The reason I have chosen so many small caps lately is to see if I have the ability to spot good companies and if I have the intestinal fortitude to ride them out. They are all bought and traded on a margin account so this isn't my RRSP or even my TFSA.

I still believe in RGX and have been buying some dips lately but nothing is happening there right now. They are finishing up their scale-up production run and are preparing to build their chemical processing plant. How they will do the mining is still up in the air although they have hinted at hiring a 3rd party to assist in that endeavor.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

PMREdmonton said:


> If they knock this one out of the park in phase 2 they could skyrocket.


I don't believe this is true, well maybe it will skyrocket temporarily. These type of technologies are quite specific, so even though they are making progress in treating the glioblastoma (GBM incidence is only 2–3 cases per 100,000 from Wiki), translating this to cancer's with rates of incidence that are economically meaningful is not cut and dry. Many companies have monoclonal antibody theraputics that have moved further into stage 2 clinical trials that have amounted to nothing. The immune system is finicky, and what these guys generate might not be broad-spanning at all.


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

You can poo-poo it all you want but no one has ever got anywhere close to this sort of a response from an immuno-therapeutic. This is a disease that puts young people in the ground 1 year from diagnosis and they have found a way to get 50% to live 4 years. 40% are disease-free at 5 years. That is the first amazing thing they did.

The second amazing thing they did was find a way to present antigens to a specific type of immune cell to generate a immunogenic response to a tumour and its cancer stem cells.

The third amazing thing they did was find a way to harvest enough cells in one blood draw and one processing to generate enough for multiple injections and treatments.

The fourth amazing thing they did was find a way to do it cheaply enough to have a cost in the range of a few thousand dollars to the consumer (that is including their margin).

The fifth amazing thing they did was to lock up a whole slew of important targets to try the same approach with multiple other cancers that are more common than GBM.

So you can try and value a company based on one product that they have in production but you can also try and value it based on new processes they have developed that will apply to multiple types of cancer that are more common than GBM. I think they have done great things and I really do believe there is more to come from their pipelines with all the markers they have locked up and the technological innovations they have come up with to build these treatments at a cheap rate.

If you want compare them to the other major success in their field which is Dendreon's Provenge which needed a new major blood draw that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Then they also need a whole new blood draw for each treatment and they need 3 treatments for each patient. So in the end they need lots and lots of money for treatment and it only increases longevity about 4 months for terminal prostate cancer that is hormone treatment resistant. 

I do believe that this company is going to be one of the leaders in immunotherapy against cancer. It offers the potential for highly tailored and potent treatments against cancer that can have virtually no side-effects and result in permanent and not temporary cures for cancer by going after the roots of the cancer itself. So they have the methodology and they have the targets locked up. Now they just need to execute and their first stab at it has been wildly successful with results that are astounding.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

But the sad reality is that 90% of experimental cancer drugs do fail! 

And with respect to cancer vaccines, I don't know the current statistics on this, but from what I have read in below link and medical journals, vaccines fail in late stages as they are still very restricted given the limitations to the immunotherapy approach, ie: the dependence/relationship between host & tumour.

http://www.oncbiz.com/documents/OBR_JAN10_CV.pdf

And on the subject of cancer, just today I read an article that indicates that the global incidence of cancer may surge 75% by 2030.

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20120601/7525-increase-in-cancer-incidence-predicted-by-2030.aspx

*PMRE:* did you hear about Mr. Doherty's case? As a physician, what do you think about the comment Mr. Doherty's wife made, that BMY has an 'ethical responsibility' to provide the drug? IMHO, such a decision should be left to the physician and patient, but I also, to some degree, understand the company's view.

http://www.globalnews.ca/health/6442651994/story.html


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

T.gal, a lot has yet to be proved for IMUC which is why you can buy it at such a low market capitalization. I'm pretty convinced on the phase I results for their first drug which is why I bought a whole bunch of them. I should have bought more when it sunk to 2.00 a couple of weeks ago but bygones and bygones and I was trying to avoid too much risk in my small caps. However, I'm pretty sure phase 2 is going to be a success because phase I results are truly amazing.

Now will they be successful at treating other cancers? I really don't know but what they are doing is based on an extremely sound principle. Our own immune systems are designed to go out and kill that which is not a proper part of our bodies. The cancer evenutally becomes so much unlike us that it can become a target for the immune system if it can be taught to recognize these abnormal cells. The immune system can then go and on the microscopic level find each and every cell and eradicate them over time in a very specific manner.

What IMUC has done is find a cheap way to find the type of immune cells that need to be trained and then found a cheap way to try and teach them how to find the tumours using combinations of tumour markers that are found at the root of the cancer - the cancer stem cells. If you can eradicate these guys you can kill all the cancer and prevent late recurrence. They found a bunch of them for GBM and did it. They have argreements in place for multiple targets on other cancer types through agreements with multiple academic centers and will now go after them using what they learned from their first product. 

So I like their approach and I like the techniques they have developed and I love the results of their first product. I also like their future pipeline so I think this one is a winner and may be bought out before too long by a big player.

As for the Doherty case, I don't think BMY should release that medication to him. It is totally unproven and thus has to be studied in clinical trials at this point in time. Unfortunately, he is not a candidate for their current trial so he can't be included as he would pollute the patient pool they have identified as the best candidates for their treatment. You just can't go around giving people any unproven treatment under uncontrolled conditions - it would be lunacy for the company to release this drug for this purpose.

I do think the situation would be different if the medication had already been approved for use but for a different indication (i.e. melanoma that has not metastasized to the brain) if the patient were willing to pay for it. However, that is not the case here.

If he were my patient, I would focus on providing comfort as his disease progresses but I would not pursue this avenue of requesting release of an unapproved medication.

As for the increase in cancer rates, as we age longer the potential for cancer increases so I see it as a success for medicine. However, I really do think we are going to see more and more effective treatments for cancer with less and less side effects. It is going to be based on molecular level understanding of cancers that is now emerging. I really like those involved in immuno-oncology right now. I also like a company called Oncolytic therapies in Canada that has developed a virus to attack multiple types of cancer and use a molecular defect in tumour cells to kill them in a very specific manner while leaving normal cells unharmed. They are also involved in multiple clinical trials and have partnered up with lots of companies to get them done cheaply. I believe old style surgery, chemotherapy and radiation will be thought to be barbaric within this century.

The beautiful thing about cancer is that once we learn how to treat it we have the cure forever. This is unlike infectious diseases where the anti-microbials adapt to our treatments.

Good luck in pharma. I don't like the big companies right now due to the death of their big money pill patents and the lack of adequate replacements. I do like the small biotechs which are doing innovative things but it is very much feast or famine.


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

T.gal, a lot has yet to be proved for IMUC which is why you can buy it at such a low market capitalization. I'm pretty convinced on the phase I results for their first drug which is why I bought a whole bunch of them. I should have bought more when it sunk to 2.00 a couple of weeks ago but bygones and bygones and I was trying to avoid too much risk in my small caps. However, I'm pretty sure phase 2 is going to be a success because phase I results are truly amazing.

Now will they be successful at treating other cancers? I really don't know but what they are doing is based on an extremely sound principle. Our own immune systems are designed to go out and kill that which is not a proper part of our bodies. The cancer evenutally becomes so much unlike us that it can become a target for the immune system if it can be taught to recognize these abnormal cells. The immune system can then go and on the microscopic level find each and every cell and eradicate them over time in a very specific manner.

What IMUC has done is find a cheap way to find the type of immune cells that need to be trained and then found a cheap way to try and teach them how to find the tumours using combinations of tumour markers that are found at the root of the cancer - the cancer stem cells. If you can eradicate these guys you can kill all the cancer and prevent late recurrence. They found a bunch of them for GBM and did it. They have argreements in place for multiple targets on other cancer types through agreements with multiple academic centers and will now go after them using what they learned from their first product. 

So I like their approach and I like the techniques they have developed and I love the results of their first product. I also like their future pipeline so I think this one is a winner and may be bought out before too long by a big player.

As for the Doherty case, I don't think BMY should release that medication to him. It is totally unproven and thus has to be studied in clinical trials at this point in time. Unfortunately, he is not a candidate for their current trial so he can't be included as he would pollute the patient pool they have identified as the best candidates for their treatment. You just can't go around giving people any unproven treatment under uncontrolled conditions - it would be lunacy for the company to release this drug for this purpose.

I do think the situation would be different if the medication had already been approved for use but for a different indication (i.e. melanoma that has not metastasized to the brain) if the patient were willing to pay for it. However, that is not the case here.

If he were my patient, I would focus on providing comfort as his disease progresses but I would not pursue this avenue of requesting release of an unapproved medication.

As for the increase in cancer rates, as we age longer the potential for cancer increases so I see it as a success for medicine. However, I really do think we are going to see more and more effective treatments for cancer with less and less side effects. It is going to be based on molecular level understanding of cancers that is now emerging. I really like those involved in immuno-oncology right now. I also like a company called Oncolytic therapies in Canada that has developed a virus to attack multiple types of cancer and use a molecular defect in tumour cells to kill them in a very specific manner while leaving normal cells unharmed. They are also involved in multiple clinical trials and have partnered up with lots of companies to get them done cheaply. I believe old style surgery, chemotherapy and radiation will be thought to be barbaric within this century.

The beautiful thing about cancer is that once we learn how to treat it we have the cure forever. This is unlike infectious diseases where the anti-microbials adapt to our treatments.

Good luck in pharma. I don't like the big companies right now due to the death of their big money pill patents and the lack of adequate replacements. I do like the small biotechs which are doing innovative things but it is very much feast or famine.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

PMREdmonton said:


> The second amazing thing they did was find a way to present antigens to a specific type of immune cell to generate a immunogenic response to a tumour and its cancer stem cells.
> 
> The fifth amazing thing they did was to lock up a whole slew of important targets to try the same approach with multiple other cancers that are more common than GBM.


These accomplishments are at the basis of the technology and what I argue is that they do not have any novel or unique approach to these processes.

The holy grail of immunotherapies against diseases like cancers has been proposed for a long time now, the problem is that unique cancer epitopes are near impossible to find and even if you find them, the way dendritic cells process these antigens and present them to T-cells is unpredictable.

They have clearly made progress with the GBM specific antigen, but this in no way suggests they are capable of doing it with other forms of cancer.

I don't doubt immunotherapy as THE way of beating cancer, but I don't see anything this company has done in terms of methods of discovering cancer antigens, nor in circumventing immune cells recognition of self.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

PMREdmonton said:


> 1. The beautiful thing about cancer is that once we learn how to treat it we have the cure forever.
> 2. I do like the small biotechs which are doing innovative things but it is very much feast or famine.


1. The same could be said for any disease, but the fact of the matter is that advances to cure cancer have been elusive despite billions spent in research in the past several decades [and how much globally on an annual basis?]. 

Certainly many patients affected by the disease, would say that the progress & wait have been harrowing! For example, by how much would you say that the combined cancer death rate has dropped since you were born [guessing 30/40 years?]. 

We have figured out how to land on the moon [43 years ago], but not to cure cancer & other. But sure, the day a cure is found, it will be an incredible day that many of us won't live long enough to see.

2. Well said.

I agreed with all the comments you made with respect to not using an experimental drug, however, I'm not so sure when dealing with dying patients.


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## londoncalling (Sep 17, 2011)

Not be be facetious but what is the last disease that medical research has cured? Polio?


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

Toronto.gal said:


> 1. The same could be said for any disease, but the fact of the matter is that advances to cure cancer have been elusive despite billions spent in research in the past several decades [and how much globally on an annual basis?].
> 
> Certainly many patients affected by the disease, would say that the progress & wait have been harrowing! For example, by how much would you say that the combined cancer death rate has dropped since you were born [guessing 30/40 years?].


The amount of $ spent on biomedical and specifically cancer research is not 5% of what has been spent on space research.

Also, re: cancer rates. This is misleading since lifespan has increased so much over the past 50 years, and cancer is largelty a disease of the aged. Rates will go up if we live longer.


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

Sampson said:


> 1. The amount of $ spent on biomedical and specifically cancer research is not 5% of what has been spent on space research.
> 2. cancer is largelty a disease of the aged.


1. But how many countries are involved in space exploration and/or even have the interest/money for that in the 1st place? 

But more than money [which of course is needed for research], the only reason I had brought up the moon landing for comparison, was because in medical science, decades go by without a cure/drug approvals, even when medical research takes place in many more countries than space research does, yet still there is no cure for many diseases even when the world is looking for cures.

2. 'Largely'? I'm not so sure about that. I personally know people who have died of cancer and all were under 40 years old; 2 under the age of 15.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

We should pick nits all day TGal.

1. Just means cancer is more complex than flying to the moon. When I get a chance, I'll try to dig up the numbers for comparison.

2. I'm not saying young don't get cancer, only that the incidence and risk are higher as people age. Therefore, it is a statistical necessity that longer lifespans will skew and increase the overall rate of death due to cancer


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

Sampson said:


> cancer is more complex than flying to the moon.


How do you know, just because we haven't found a cure? Is finding a cure for the common-cold also more complex than landing on other satellites? 

I have to admit that the human body is the most complex of all, and an unbelievable engineering marvel! 

I'm not nit-picking, just giving MHO. 

Cheers!


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Toronto.gal said:


> Is finding a cure for the common-cold also more complex than landing on other satellites?


Yes, of course.
Just imagine the impact (and profits) of finding a guaranteed, reliable, universal cure for the common cold/influenza and related seasonal viral infections.
That could very well become the biggest market ever, far greater than the market for space exploration (which is simply a money pit).


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

Toronto.gal said:


> How do you know, just because we haven't found a cure? Is finding a cure for the common-cold also more complex than landing on other satellites?


Evolution baby.

The rules governing space travel are define by physics. Virus evolution and recombination is both random, and the bodies ability to handle it somewhat fixed - immune system.

To extend Harold's point, more deaths from influenza (0.4-0.5%) than cancer (0.1-0.2%) - that said, the effect of cancer, treatments, loss of productivity is probably higher.


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

While I don't think we'll ever find one cure for all cancers, I do believe we'll eventually find cures or virtual cures to a few cancers then some cancers than a substantial minority then a small maority and then a preponderance.

The thing about cancer is that it pretty much well starts denovo in each individual and then progresses in one of a multitude of directions. It has to elude detection by the immune system, it has to get access to nutrients and it has to use basic cell machinery.

I really believe that as we gain more knowledge about how cancers work at the molecular level and how our immune system works and how we can gear it up to act against the cancer that any individual has we will gain more and more knowledge with each patient, each trial and each new technique that comes along. While we continue to amass knowledge cancer will remain a relatively stable target as compared to viruses and bacteria which undergo a process of natural selection on a scale that cannot be utlilized by cancer cells in your body. Thus as we get smarter and smarter cancer basically stays the same disease as an invader in our body which can be attacked in many different manners (surgery, chemo, radiation and immunotherapy).

As for the complaints about the inability to cure human illness, many people are cured of cancer right now. They will get cancer, receive treatment and the cancer will not recur in their lifetime. We are able to do this for more and more cancers over time so that is sort of a cure. As for the many other illnesses which plague us we really don't understand why they occur so it is obvious that we cannot cure them. However look at the great advances being made in orthopedics, stem cells and tissue regeneration, oncology, Auto-immune diseases (i.e. Rheumatoid arthritis) and infectious disease (HIV and Hep C for example). While it is true that these improvements are not cures they can sometimes be so close with so few side effects from the treatment that some individuals are not that far off from a virtual cure.


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

New NR from IMUC. They are starting a small phase II trial for ovarian cancer using another dendritic cell vaccine focused on cancer stem cells:

http://www.imuc.com/imuc-01-29-2013


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## PMREdmonton (Apr 6, 2009)

Big upward move in prices over the last 3 days from 2.00 now to 2.70 all on basically no news other than a presentation announcement that the CEO will be speaking at a biotech conference. It is not known whether he will be speaking about the current phase II study on GBM.

My speculation as to why the stock is really increasing is someone on Wall Street has put 2 and 2 together to figure out the phase II trial is going to be a success. The reason why they can deduce this prior to the announcement is there is a known death rate for GBM with 50% mortality at about 15 months. The trial is slated to end when 64 participants have died. If the treatment was no better than placebo then 50% should have died a couple of months ago. Now that we have gotten to February and the trial has still not ended it is most likely that the treatment is working to account for the lack of 64 dead patients. Now this is certainly speculative and maybe the patients are all surviving longer than expected but this is probably unlikely given the long and consistent mortality findings in this condition.

I still consider this one a speculative bet as are all start-up biotechs with no revenue stream. The trial may be negative and you could lose everything if you invest in this company. Once the current buying pressure ends the shorts could show up and drive the price down for all we know.

I still view this company as a strong buyout target from a larger pharmaceutical company at a large premium once their technology is proven as it has applications to other tumour lines and has very little toxicity unlike most other cancer treatments.

Just some food for thought.


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