Logo of jester cap with thought bubble.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Immunogen Inc (IMGN)
Q3 2020 Earnings Call
Nov 6, 2020, 8:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks
  • Questions and Answers
  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to ImmunoGen's Third Quarter 2020 Financial and Operating Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Courtney O'Konek, Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Courtney O'Konek -- Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations

Good morning, and thank you for joining today's call. Earlier today, we issued a press release that includes a summary of our recent progress and third quarter 2020 financial results. This press release and a web stream of this call can be found under the Investor and Media section of Immunogen.com.

With me today are Mark Enyedy, our President and CEO; Susan Altschuller, our Chief Financial Officer; and Anna Berkenblit, our Chief Medical Officer; Stacy Coen, our Chief Business Officer will also join us for Q&A.

During today's call, we will review key accomplishments for the business over the last three months, our financial results and upcoming milestones. During the discussion, we will use forward-looking statements and our actual results may differ materially from such statements. Descriptions of the risks and uncertainties associated with an investment in ImmunoGen are included in our SEC filings.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Courtney. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We've generated significant momentum in the business over the last several months, achieving a number of important milestones across the company, while managing the challenges of operating in the COVID environment. Starting with our lead program, we were pleased to announce our strategic collaboration with Huadong Medicine to develop and commercialize Mirvetuximab in Greater China. This is the second-largest pharmaceutical market in the world and Huadong's extensive research, development, and regulatory capabilities, along with its access to a large network of local hospitals will allow us to realize Mirvetuximab potential to improve outcomes and bring more good days to women living with ovarian cancer in the region. This partnership further strengthens our balance sheet with an upfront payment of $40 million, additional milestone payments of up to $265 million, and tiered royalties on commercial sales.

We look forward to working with Huadong to bring Mirvetuximab to the market in Greater China and I thank the teams at Lazard and Ropes & Gray for their support in bringing this deal to fruition. Beyond Greater China, we are working with a sense of urgency to execute on our pivotal trials and prepare for the first potential launch of Mirvetuximab in 2022 in the U.S. To this end, we continue to advance site activation and patient enrollment for both SORAYA and MIRASOL, and are on track to report top-line data from SORAYA in Q3 next year. In addition to a potential monotherapy label, we are committed to moving into earlier lines of therapy by combining with other agents. With the benefit of the encouraging data we shared at ASCO and ESMO earlier this year, we are working to define the best path to label expansion with our combination regimens and look forward to sharing our approach in a future call.

Moving to our earlier stage programs we were delighted to receive breakthrough therapy designation from FDA for IMGN632 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory BPDCN, underscoring the need for safe and effective treatments for this rare and aggressive cancer. We are engaged with FDA to further define the development path for BPDCN, while continuing to evaluate 632 and AML and other hematological malignancies. Finally, through effective execution and business development and deployment of our ATM facility, we have further strengthened our balance sheet and now expect our existing cash together with future payments from our partners to fund our operations into the second half of 2022.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Anna to review our clinical programs in more detail. Anna?

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Thanks, Mark. We are pleased with the progress of Mirvetuximab and our earlier-stage pipeline as we enroll patients in our SORAYA, MIRASOL, IMGN632, and IMGC936 trials. We are on track with Mirvetuximab monotherapy. For SORAYA, we expect top-line data during the third quarter of 2021 and the BLA submission before the end of 2021 to support approval in 2022. For MIRASOL, we expect to report top-line data for this study in the first half of 2022,

Moving to our Mirvetuximab combination regimens. We presented final data from our FORWARD II triplet cohort, evaluating Mirvetuximab in combination with carboplatin and bevacizumab at ESMO in September. The platinum-sensitive triplet cohort evaluated 41 patients with recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer with medium or high levels of folate receptor alpha, who have received up to two prior lines of therapy. We observed a confirmed overall response rate of 83% with a median duration of response of 10.9 months and median progression-free survival of 12.8 months. I will also remind you of the Mirvetuximab and Bevacizumab doublet data presented at ASCO in May, where we observed an overall response rate of 64% in patients with high FR Alpha expression regardless of platinum status. The Mirv + Bev data generated to-date could support Compendia Listing and given the observed responses and favorable tolerability profile, we are working quickly to define a formal path to registration for Mirvetuximab in combination and seek to expand into earlier lines of therapy.

Moving to our earlier stage portfolio. We advanced our programs targeting both hematological malignancies and solid tumors. We continue to progress multiple cohorts with IMGN632 our anti-CD123 ADC, including monotherapy expansions in BPDCN and minimal residual disease positive AML following frontline induction therapy, as well as combinations with Azacitidine and Venetoclax in relapsed-refractory AML. We look forward to presenting updated data from the IMGN632 monotherapy BPDCN expansion cohort in an oral presentation and a trials and progress poster on the AML monotherapy and combination cohorts at ASH in December.

In the ASH BPDCN abstract released earlier this week, 23 patients are included, comprising the largest prospective study with a single agent in patients with relapsed-refractory BPDCN. We are pleased with the activity in these heavily pretreated patients with high unmet need, including those with prior intensive chemotherapy, prior transplant, and prior Elzonris with an overall response rate of 30% and clinically meaningful durations of response ranging from over 3 months to 9.2 months. IMGN632 also demonstrates a favorable safety and tolerability profile without capillary leak syndrome or need for hospitalization for administration. We look forward to Dr. [Indecipherable] presentation on Saturday, December 5th.

Finally, we are pleased to have enrolled our first patient in a Phase 1 dose escalation study evaluating IMGC936, our ADAM9 targeting ADC, which is being codeveloped with MacroGenics in solid tumors including non-small cell lung, colorectal, pancreatic, gastric, and triple-negative breast cancer and look forward to further advancing this trial.

With that, I'll turn the call back over to Susan to review the financials. Susan?

Susan Altschuller -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Anna. For the third quarter of 2020, we generated $18.2 million dollars in revenue, nearly all of which came from non-cash royalty revenues. Operating expenses were $34.9 million compared with $31.2 million for the third quarter of 2019. This increase was driven by increased R&D expenses from greater clinical trial costs related to advancing our MIRASOL, SORAYA, and 632 studies, partially offset by lower restructuring expenses. G&A expenses were $10.2 million dollars compared to $9.2 million in the third quarter of 2019, primarily due to increased professional fees. At the end of the third quarter, we had $188.2 million in cash. Importantly, subsequent to quarter-end, we brought in $54 million in net proceeds from our aftermarket financing, received $40 million in upfront payments from Huadong Medicine related to our partnership for the rights to Mirvetuximab in Greater China, received an upfront payment from a newly executed license agreement with Viridian and will receive a $5 million payment from Novartis for our development milestone achieved in September.

Updating our 2020 financial guidance, we now expect revenues to be between $60 million and $65 million, operating expenses to be between $160 million and $165 million and our cash at the year-end to be between $245 million and $250 million. Please note that our revenue guidance does not include any potential impact from the agreement with Huadong Medicine. We are preparing for the potential accelerated approval for Mirvetuximab in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and are planning for increased investment in 2021 related to manufacturing and support of commercial launch. With the addition of these investments, we expect that current cash and anticipated cash receipts from partners will fund operations into the second half of 2022.

With that, I will turn the call back over to Mark.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Susan. Just a few closing remarks. We've made significant progress with the business over the course of 2020 and look forward to a strong finish to the year. We're excited about the future. With the benefit of a strong cash position and an experienced management team, we've positioned the business to execute on a number of important milestones in 2021, including pivotal data and a BLA submission for our lead program, define the path to registration for 632 and BPDCN as well as label expansion for Mirvetuximab, generating initial data for IMGC936 and filing an IND for IMGN151. So I look forward to keeping you apprised of our progress in what are exciting times for the company. With that, we'll open the call for questions, operator?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of John Newman from Canaccord. Your line is now open.

John Newman -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking my question. Just had a question on IMGN632. This asset has become really interesting with the data that you presented for BPDCN as well as the breakthrough status and just curious about how you're thinking about the registration pathway? Especially because if you look at your CR rate, you're basically neck and neck with where Stemline was in the Relapsed/Refractory population. So just curious as to how you're thinking about developing this asset in terms of registration. Thanks.

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Thanks, John. Yeah, we're very pleased with the activity we're seeing in Relapsed/Refractory BPDCN and we look forward to sharing updated data at ASH. Around the time of ASH, we also will be sharing plans in terms of our registration path forward. As we've discussed previously, our goal this year was to meet with FDA to define a path forward, and we look forward to sharing that around the time of ASH.

John Newman -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Schmidt from Guggenheim. Your line is now open.

Michael Schmidt -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Hey guys, good morning, and congrats on the progress from me as well. On IMGN632, can you maybe provide a little bit more color on how much additional data we might expect here at the ASH Conference? And I did note that some of the PRs later converted to CRC, just wondering if that's a general phenomenon with ADCs in this indication?

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Thanks, Michael. So you may recall at ASH last year we had 10 BPDCN patients enrolled, nine of whom were evaluable. And at the time of the data cut off for the abstract for ASH, we had enrolled 23 patients where you see we have a 30% response rate, and now we do have duration of response information as you saw over three months to 9.2 months. So this duration of response status is quite nice in this Relapsed/Refractory population. We continue to enroll and we will present updated data on the entire dataset at ASH.

Michael Schmidt -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Okay, great. And then an operational question I guess. Should you decide to file a BLA based on these data, how might this affect the Jazz Pharma opt in rights? My understanding was that they may need to opt in prior to BLA submission. Just wondering how that might work out structurally speaking?

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, thanks, Michael. So the way the agreement works is, there are essentially to opt-in periods. The first runs from the time we sign the agreement up until the initiation of pivotal development in AML. And the second opt-in period runs from that day through the BLA filing for AML. There's a little bit of nuance related to an interim filing for BPDCN, which is probably beyond the scope of this call. So the way I would characterize it is simply that they can opt-in early up till the initiation of pivotal development for AML. And as I said, there is some nuance around BPDCN where if they have not opted in, there's a deferral period.

Michael Schmidt -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Okay, thank you. And then, Anna, I know when we think about market size, duration of treatment makes a big difference. Can you maybe comment on how duration of therapy in U.S. study may compare to that, that has been seen with Elzonris?

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

So Michael, it's a little early for us to start talking about comparing ourselves to Elzonris in terms of duration of response, but I would just remind you that with Elzonris, duration of response in the absence of transplant is actually rather brief. In Elzonris, you do develop anti-drug antibodies and the median duration of response tends to be in the three-month range again in the absence of transplant. So we're pleased with the patients that we've enrolled thus far heavily pretreated, post-intensive chemotherapy, some post-transplant and some post Elzonris, and we've had durations of response north of nine months.

Andy T. Hsieh -- William Blair & Company -- Analyst

Just a quick one for me. So I guess the industry is not familiar with the China regulatory pathway. So I'm just wondering what needs to be done there in order to gain some sort of a regulatory approval or marketing authorization. Is a full blown Phase III trial needed or just basically bridging study and complementing I guess both the FORWARD I, MIRASOL and SORAYA would be sufficient? So any sort of color on that would be super helpful. Thank you.

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Sure, Andy. So the -- one of the reasons we chose Huadong is because of their expertise in developing drugs in China. And so we look forward to really clarifying the regulatory path for Mirvetuximab in China. We are confident that we will need to generate data in patients in China and we're working with Huadong to figure out the most expedient path to doing so. And we will get regulatory alignment with the Chinese regulators to do so.

Andy T. Hsieh -- William Blair & Company -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Biren Amin from Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Biren Amin -- Jefferies & Company, Inc. -- Analyst

Yeah, hi guys, thanks for taking my questions. Maybe on Mirvetuximab, but do you think FDA will want to wait for the MIRASOL data before it considers a BLA that's supported by SORAYA?

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Well, that's certainly a possibility. That is not our base case assumption. The SORAYA data are really on track to be delivered a year ahead to allow us to have a filing before the end of next year. And so we don't think -- unless they have some concern we don't think there will be any rationale for them to wait for the MIRASOL data.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And I guess Biren, I'd point you to the Trodelvy situation. Obviously, they had a delay in the sense that they had manufacturing issues that delayed them. But ultimately, they gained approval on the Single-arm study, while the -- and the Phase III study read out shortly thereafter. So I think the FDAs prepared to take action, particularly where you have significant unmet need on the basis of the data that are in front of them.

Biren Amin -- Jefferies & Company, Inc. -- Analyst

Got it. And then your strategy for combination. I know in the past you've talked about potential Compendia Listing. But you I think on this call today you mentioned that you would disclose some plans in a future call. Are you I guess as a company reconsidering that strategy? And would you potentially move forward with them -- a registrational study in this setting?

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, so the way to think about it is additive. So we've generated a lot of good combination data and it would be those data that are the basis for submitting to the Compendia through support of listing and correspondingly reimbursement in the U.S. As you know that in the absence of a label we would be constrained in terms of the ability to promote those data, and so the goal really is ultimately to gain a label expansion in earlier line patients, and we think the best approach there likely will be through combinations either with Avastin or carboplatin. So that's what we're working through, as we speak.

Biren Amin -- Jefferies & Company, Inc. -- Analyst

Okay. And then maybe just a question on the BPDCN program with 632. Are there any plans in evaluating this in front line? Because if I look at your safety profile, you're not seeing any capillary leak syndrome or as I think, we saw this with Elzonris. And then I guess, what's driving that? Because it seems that we've seen this with other CD 1-3 program. So just want to kind of understand that, what's driving the safety profile.

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Yeah. So certainly, we're excited about further development of IMGN632 in both Relapsed/Refractory and the frontline setting. And actually the protocol is currently open. We recently amended -- it is enrolling in frontline patients, we just started that. I think from the safety profile perspective, it's very clear that IMGN632 has a very favorable safety and tolerability profile. We're not required to be hospitalized, and we have not had the Capillary leak syndrome, that it's really been seen and can be fatal with Elzonris and that's in large part due to the diphtheria toxin conjugate, ImmunoGen stopped working on diphtheria toxin conjugate many years ago. In terms of CD123 and other ways of targeting it, you know with bispecifics there is certainly cytokine release syndrome that can be problematic for those bispecific. So I think at this point, we're quite pleased with the safety profile that we're seeing.

Biren Amin -- Jefferies & Company, Inc. -- Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jessica Fye from J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.

Jessica Fye -- J.P. Morgan Securities -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I want to just focus on ovarian for a minute. I know some of your slides, you talk about the number of platinum-resistant ovarian patients, but maybe just drilling into that more specifically. What do you see as the annual incidence of post Bevacizumab platinum-resistant ovarian cancer with 123 prior lines of therapy?

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. And to add that one more criteria into that, those that are folate receptor alpha positive at a high level, we think the annual incidents of the market for our proposed label would be 2500 patients.

Jessica Fye -- J.P. Morgan Securities -- Analyst

Okay. And can you...

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And then if you exclude -- and we think Jess that the -- if you take away that have previously treated with Avastin criterion, it jumps to 5,000. So, when we look at the data from FORWARD I, which we think is a reasonably representative sample, if that half the patients had prior Avastin and half did not.

Jessica Fye -- J.P. Morgan Securities -- Analyst

Got it. And is that U.S. or U.S. and Europe?

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Those are U.S. numbers. So what we are -- Yeah. We use a combination of data, so we buy data from DRG. We also have an agreement with Flatiron, where we're looking at longitudinal cohort and then we supplement that with a physician survey through Ipsos to get at those numbers. The DRG is the starting day -- starting point.

Jessica Fye -- J.P. Morgan Securities -- Analyst

Got it. And is there a possibility that the SORAYA trial could support European approval for Mirvetuximab or do you anticipate needing controlled data like from MIRASOL?

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So we will go talk to the EMA about the result of SORAYA for sure. Their appetite for single-arm studies to support approval historically has been limited in oncology, I've seen it done -- done it with in my past life at Genzyme. So we will go out of the conversation, and if that doesn't bear fruit, then it would be MIRASOL that will support full approval in the EU.

Jessica Fye -- J.P. Morgan Securities -- Analyst

Okay. And then it sounds like you're kind of thinking about the path forward for Mirvetuximab in combination. So what are the most kind of interesting possibilities there in your view and which are those that best maximize the commercial opportunity?

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. If you look at ovarian cancer today, most patients on initial diagnosis following surgical debulking. I mean there is a fair amount of neoadjuvant use and we're actually looking at that in an IST. But patients get either a platinum-based doublet or a triplet with a third agent being Avastin. And so we generated some very nice triplet data and that we shared at mature data at ESMO. But, from a market opportunity perspective, I think obviously substituting Mirvetuximab for paclitaxel in the doublet or in the triplet would be the highest market opportunity.

The challenge there is that, that's going to be a very large study. And so what we're looking at, are opportunities to move into earlier line therapy, either using a strategy similar to the data that we share at ASCO, where the patients were platinum agnostic, that is, it was a mix of patients who were either resistant or sensitive, but later line patients. And the data we saw there in terms of response rate were quite compelling, we had a 64% response rate in those patients with high levels of folate receptor alpha expression. So looking at that sort of third line later platinum agnostic population or separately going after a non-platinum based regimen in platinum-sensitive patients to remain platinum-sensitive, because what happens is, after a couple of lines in platinum there are a lot of reasons why physicians are not giving platinum to those patients, they are hypersensitivity, tired bone marrow, etc. And so what we see in our data is a growing population of those patients where a combination regimen that doesn't include platinum. So for example Mirvetuximab plus Avastin could be a very nice alternative for them. So those are the -- those are our thoughts in terms of label expansion.

Jessica Fye -- J.P. Morgan Securities -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Boris Peaker from Cowen. Your line is now open.

Boris Peaker -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I'm just curious for the MIRASOL as well as the SORAYA trial. As you're enrolling it, what fraction of patients are you finding to pool into the folate receptor-positive category based on your new assay?

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

So for us, it's not a new assay. It's the assay that we have used from the beginning of the program, the PS2+ assay and we're tracking it exactly as we would expect. We know from testing over 2000 patients that about 40% are FR alpha high.

Boris Peaker -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst

Great, thanks for taking my question.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Catanzaro from Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Joe Catanzaro -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking my question here. Maybe just one quick one. I guess now with a nice Greater China deal under your belt for Mirvetuximab, how do you think about the potential for additional ex-U.S. partnerships around that asset? I guess, namely Europe. And is that largely consistent on how you view your cash needs moving forward and whether may be you could potentially create more value as SORAYA and MIRASOL readout in the near future? Thanks.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So, I mean, I think you say it well, which is -- this is a multi-variable equation here and we're looking at. What resources we would need to bring to bear to launch the product versus what the value would be if bringing on a partner for in particular Europe. We've done the analysis in Europe and it's a fairly concentrated market in terms of physician targets, treatment patterns and so on, actually more concentrated than the U.S. That's offset to some degree by the need for national-level commercial infrastructure. So what you end up with are estimates of commercial and medical affairs, infrastructure, similar to what you have in the Europe, when you look at sort of region to region comparison but certainly within the ambit of a company like ImmunoGen, particularly being able to finance on the back of positive pivotal data. So, that said, there are a lot of advantages to partnering as well and so that's something that we will evaluate in particular with positive pivotal data in hand.

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

One thing I would add with the China deal and $40 million upfront toward the proceeds from the ATM. We've now updated guidance for our cash outlays until the second half of 2022 and we feel that we're in a position of strength. So we want to do the right strategic decision on partnerships because we have that optionality now that we've strengthened balance sheet this quarter.

Joe Catanzaro -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

Okay, got it. That's helpful. Thanks. Thanks for taking my question.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jonathan Chang of SVB Leerink. Your line is now open.

David Ruch -- SVB Leerink -- Analyst

Hey. Good morning, guys. This is David Ruch on for Jonathan. Thanks for taking our questions. First question for 632, have you guys presented, or do you have plans to present any duration of response data from the 71 patients treated with monotherapy at ASH of last year? And then second, could you provide any color on the enrollment progress in the combination cohorts and when we might see initial data from the Azacitidine combos in AML? Please.

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

So for the AML monotherapy data that we presented at ASH last year for IMGN632, we anticipate that when we write a manuscript for that we will provide duration of response data. Moving to the combinations. We look forward to -- we're in the midst of planning an Investor Conference Call event around the time of ASH and that would be the appropriate time for us to provide a progress update on the combinations for IMGN632. We do have a TRIALS IN PROGRESS poster at ASH describing the study design combining with azacitidine with venetoclax and as a triplet, and we are in the midst of that dose escalation.

David Ruch -- SVB Leerink -- Analyst

Got it, thank you. And then just second, I noticed on the IGF-1R collaboration with Viridian/miRagen, we've seen some impressive sales figures already this year from Tepezza. And I was just wondering if you could provide any further specificity on your economics within the thyroid eye disease opportunity and timing of potential regulatory filing, and I guess, anything else here that you'd highlight about the promise of this opportunity. Thanks a lot.

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Sure. So, we're not disclosing upfront numbers on that deal, but the structure is upfront milestones and royalties in a traditional type of fashion, and we do have the opportunity to recognize approximately $50 million in development milestones and up to $95 million in sales milestones on that program. We do think it's well placed with Viridian. They are in a position to move that forward. As you know, we're focused on cancer here at ImmunoGen and we think that it's complementary to have them pursuing this asset in the thyroid eye disease indication, which has a very promising potential.

David Ruch -- SVB Leerink -- Analyst

Great, thanks a lot and congrats on the progress.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kennen MacKay from RBC. Your line is now open.

Kennen MacKay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Hey, thanks so much for taking the question and congrats on what's been a really remarkable year here. I had another BD question. Mark, I was wondering, where are you feeling the most incoming interest these days? Is it from strategics relating to mirvetuximab or potential combination therapies for mirvetuximab and additional trials or cohorts that could be run there or earlier pipeline out of nine or more sort of platform interest looking to access the linker and payload tech similar to the Viridian deal that we recently heard about?

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So what I would say is we get it at the two ends of the spectrum. What I mean by that is there is inbound interest in mirvetuximab. Obviously we've signed a deal for Greater China, but it's a late stage oncology asset. And as you could imagine that tends to attract a lot of attention. At the other end of the spectrum it is around the platform. With the recent success in terms of approvals in the ADC space, there is a lot of interest in the underlying technology. So we are fielding inbound similar to catalyze the discussion with Viridian. And so those are the kinds of things we're entertaining. And I think as we see the progress, for example with 936 which really integrates a number of important innovations that came out of our labs over the last half decade or so in terms of payloads, linkers and also some antibody engineering, people see that and I think as those that program progresses we'll probably -- that will generate even greater interest. And so we're excited about those things and being able to deploy the technological platform more broadly, so that's where it is. In the middle on both the 632 and ADAM9 are partners. so we're not getting any interest there. what those programs do have is innovation that has intrigued others to come knocking.

Kennen MacKay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Got you. And Mark, maybe just elaborating on that a little bit. Obviously there's been a lot of strategic interest in ADCs after the medication got competitive in the pneumatic acquisition and some of the deals that we've seen Seattle -- Seagen rather now, inking relating interesting combination of ADCs with checkpoints. Maybe, in ovarian cancer, I'm wondering if there are specific checkpoints that stand out as maybe the better sort of combination partners are really if there's been any evolution in thinking around the field, a potential immuno-oncology partner in ovarian cancer? Partner in a combination drug sense, not a...

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, yeah. So Ken, you may remember that we moved forward with Merck combed with KEYTRUDA in the ovarian cancer setting in platinum-resistant patients.

Kennen MacKay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Yeah.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And the initial responses were quite encouraging. However, when we expanded out the cohort, we didn't see a significant contribution in terms of efficacy beyond what we've typically seen in that population with single agent mirvetuximab. And so we have not pursued that further. There have been some really interesting preclinical data. I would point you to a paper by Albert Zappalia, it's a lab I think based in Switzerland. And what they showed was synergy in particular between these turbulent acting agents and the checkpoint inhibitors and say -- it's an encouraging early data which didn't pan out. But what I would say is, we're not adverse to it. Anna has a few other words to add here.

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Yeah, I think unfortunately, ovarian cancer is unlike many other tumors where checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized the treatment paradigm. There have been several Phase III failures for checkpoint inhibitors at this point in ovarian cancer with avelumab in the JAVELIN studies and with the atezolizumab most recently in the IMagyn050 study. So we tend to be not very invitational with our consumers. I would even go so far as to say that checkpoint inhibitors have not really achieved proof of concept in ovarian cancer. So I think we will be unlikely -- unless there is a new target that's identified and the biology is strong for us to pursue combinations with the currently available checkpoint inhibitors.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Right. So, but if we look at the earlier part of the portfolio for example, with the IMGC936, the ADAM9 program where we are moving in the tumor types that have shown activity with checkpoint inhibitors, I think that creates the opportunity. So we're absolutely open to it as we said we ran the experiment with mirvetuximab in ovarian cancer and for the reasons Anna identified, didn't see anything that made us say, this is a place we want to bet heavily.

Kennen MacKay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Got it, thank you very much.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Sure.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Swayampakula Ramakanth from H.C. Wainwright. Your line is now open.

Swayampakula Ramakanth -- H.C. Wainwright -- Analyst

Thank you. This is RK from H.C. Wainwright. Most of my questions have been asked, just have a question on 936 and this the ADAM9 targeting ADC that you have partnered with MacroGenics. Could you just give us some color as to the progress of the trial and also anything regarding timing for data release?

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Yeah, RK, we're delighted to have announced on our earnings call that we've dosed the first patient. And so, the trial is on its way. It's a standard 3-plus-3 dose escalation study, and the beauty of ADAM9 is that it is highly expressed on a multitude of solid tumors and not on normal tissue. So there is a nice differential there that is allowing us to go after non-small cell, lung cancer, colorectal, pancreatic, gastric and triple-negative breast cancer. So we anticipate that the 3-plus-3 design should enroll well. And when we have sufficient data we look forward to sharing it.

Swayampakula Ramakanth -- H.C. Wainwright -- Analyst

Thank you. Thanks for taking my question.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John Newman from Canaccord. Your line is now open.

John Newman -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Hi guys, thanks for taking the follow-up. So I just wondered if you could maybe elaborate a bit on how we should think about use of mirvetuximab longer term in the frontline in combination in ovarian. I know obviously that's down the road, that will be a bigger study. But just curious as to how you might get there if that will be a study that down the line ImmunoGen can put together and run, that would maybe be a study to look at with cohort groups. Just curious given the activity that you're seeing combination was not just platinum but also with Avastin? Thanks.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So just to revisit the conversation we had with Jess, we are looking at combination regimens to expand the label that could include recurrent platinum-sensitive patients or these platinum-agnostic patients that I described and so I think that is the likely next step. To get to a front-line indication, I think would likely involve a cooperative group study given the scale of that effort. So what we really want to do in the -- for the next step in label expansion is to move into earlier lines and address some of these recurrent platinum-sensitive or platinum agnostic patients. And also, going right to the top of the queue is also started this IST in neoadjuvant and see what the impact is there. I can't tell you sitting here today what the exact path to registration would be for a neoadjuvant study. That's something we would need to think through. So, I think in terms of near term from us, look for that patient segment where we're in later line platinum-sensitive or platinum-agnostic patients and stay tuned.

John Newman -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I'm showing no further questions. I would like to turn the call back over to the team for closing remarks.

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thanks very much. Well, we appreciate the interest today and look forward to seeing you all at ASH and in the New Year and as we make further progress with the business. So thanks very much.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Duration: 43 minutes

Call participants:

Courtney O'Konek -- Senior Director of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations

Mark Enyedy -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Anna Berkenblit -- Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer

Susan Altschuller -- Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

John Newman -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Michael Schmidt -- Guggenheim Securities -- Analyst

Andy T. Hsieh -- William Blair & Company -- Analyst

Biren Amin -- Jefferies & Company, Inc. -- Analyst

Jessica Fye -- J.P. Morgan Securities -- Analyst

Boris Peaker -- Cowen and Company -- Analyst

Joe Catanzaro -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst

David Ruch -- SVB Leerink -- Analyst

Kennen MacKay -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst

Swayampakula Ramakanth -- H.C. Wainwright -- Analyst

More IMGN analysis

All earnings call transcripts

AlphaStreet Logo