What happened
Shares of Immatics (IMTX -3.40%) were trading higher on Wednesday after the biopharmaceutical company announced positive data from a phase 1 clinical trial for several of its pipeline candidates. As of 3:25 p.m. EDT, Immatics' stock was up by 25.9%, after soaring by as much as 58.4% earlier in the day.
So what
Immatics focuses on innovative cancer treatments. Its adoptive cell therapy seeks to modify a patient's own T cells (white blood cells that bind to and instruct virus-infected cells to self-destruct) to better target and destroy cancer cells.
In a phase 1 study, Immatics administered several of its ACTengine pipeline candidates to 16 cancer patients whose previous treatments had been ineffective. The goal of the trial was to assess the safety, tolerability, and initial signs of clinical and biological efficacy of these therapies.
Image source: Getty Images.
Data from 10 patients showed that nine of them achieved disease control, while eight of the 10 experienced tumor shrinkage, among other positive results. These experimental treatments were also generally well tolerated, with all adverse events being deemed "manageable."
CEO Cedrik Britten said, "While the focus of this readout was to evaluate safety and initial biological activity, these unexpected observations on first anti-tumor activity indicate the therapeutic potential for our ACTengine platform in solid cancer patients with considerable tumor burden."
Now what
While these results are encouraging, Immatics and its pipeline programs face a long and arduous process filled with potential regulatory obstacles, possible failures from clinical trials, and other problems. It is far too soon to know whether Immatics' master plan will work, and for that reason, long-term investors should probably keep away from this healthcare stock for now.
