INCY, NLNK, and IDO inhibitors. "Can one own the space by owning both?" Yup, not counting an academic effort out of Denmark involving a peptide vaccine approach. For further color, here is a slightly dated overview:
Trial watch: IDO inhibitors in cancer therapy
Anyone following the space is by now aware these are not competitive as stand alone therapies, but they do seem additive with others. Hence most trials involve various combos.
Epacadostat, here referred to as a 2nd gen inhibitor, seemed to have an edge in efficacy offset by a somewhat worse looking AE profile. It would be interesting to ask both management teams how they felt their compounds were differentiated. There is some overlap in the clinical programs, but the closest thing to an apples to apples comp will be the release of NLNK's indoximod trial with Yervoy in malignant melanoma, a trial that has been mirrored already with epacadostat. That will be one of NewLink's trials reading out within a year.
Parking this link to epacadostat's results in this population:
Preliminary results from a phase 1/2 study of INCB024360 combined with ipilimumab (ipi) in patients (pts) with melanoma.
NewLink is currently about 1.5x book, with an enterprise value under 200m. Despite a fairly wide ranging clinical program, most of it is P1 stuff, hence burn shouldn't be drastic, and dilution not imminent. They can certainly hope to raise at hire prices given upcoming news flow.
Tempted to nibble.
Cheers, Tuck |
