The main event after the quarter were the results were presented by NeoTX at the AACR meeting. We have now examined the abstract and poster. It was a comparably large phase I/IIa study with 19+7+33 patients (illustration below).

The toxicity profile was favourable with mainly grade 1-2 adverse events (i.e. not serious) with no treatment discontinuation due to toxicity at the recommended phase II dose. Pre-treatment with obinutuzumab lead to a better plasma concentration of naptumomab. There were also some promising efficacy results. The two complete responses, one in pancreatic cancer and one in ovarian cancer, are interesting. In our original note, based on the AARC abstract, we calculated the disease control rate based on the total number of patients. We now have seen the poster. It is more correct to calculate the disease control rate based on the number of evaluable patients, which was 42. The disease control rate can thus be calculated as 19% (rather than 14%), and the objective response rate 9.5%, which looks somewhat more promising, considering the population recruited was very challenging to treat. 69% had pancreatic, ovarian or triple-negative breast cancers. These are aggressive cancers. Furthermore, patients had received a median of 3 prior lines of therapy. They were thus likely end-stage with a short remaining life expectancy. One would not expect a high response rate in such patients. It is, however, impossible to judge how much the PD-L1 inhibitor contributed, which, while usually not effective in this setting, can work for certain patients. Consequently, we do not change our estimates of naptumomab. The next step will be to recruit a cohort expansion in oesophageal cancer with around 54 patients starting in Q3 2023.

Furthermore, Active Biotech published new preclinical data demonstrating the mechanisms behind the anti-tumor activity of tasquinimod in blood-based cancers and NewTX published new preclinical data on naptumomab during the quarter.

The company had no revenues in Q1. Operating costs were slightly lower than the previous quarter at SEK12m (the Q4 figure was 15) with a similar cash flow. The cash position at the end of the quarter was SEK30m (SEK42m).

We have increased the development time of tasquinimod in multiple myeloma by one year, now assuming a market launch in 2029 (2028). We also assume a one-year later market launch of naptumomab in 2028 (2027). This, together with the smaller cash position, leads to a decrease in our Base Case to 2.8 (3.0). As the company’s cash position only finances operations until the end of this year, we have included dilution assuming some capital will be raised in 2023, leading to a fully diluted Base Case of SEK2.2 (3.0, non-diluted).

Our new Bull Case is SEK 3.2 and our Bear Case is SEK 1.3.