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TapImmune (TPIV) News 11-17-2014. For more information call Financial Insights at 866-359-7541.

Could This Emerging Drug Developer Really Be Worth A Billion Dollars In Five Years?

Nov 17, 2014 (ACCESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- Los Angeles, CA / ACCESSWIRE / November 17, 2014 /

Chief Executive Officers of publicly traded companies are often warned not speculate about the future valuation of their firms and that's precisely part of the reason investors are looking more closely at the recent "on the record" statements made by TapImmune's (OTCBB:TPIV) Dr. Glynn Wilson to the Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review.

In a new article published by the U.K. based magazine that tracks intellectual property in the rapidly evolving world of life sciences, the otherwise conservative Wilson states that in just five years, he estimates the Seattle-based company will be worth more than a $1 billion.

Wilson, who lost his own wife to breast cancer, has been quietly building an impressive pipeline and surrounding himself with a scientific leadership program comprised of individuals from major industry and academia including the Mayo Clinic, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, GlaxoSmithKline and others as he seeks to solve a very difficult and complex puzzle using multiple approaches.

Oddly enough, TapImmune now stands out as the cheapest house in the exclusive and expensive neighborhood of companies developing innovative drugs to combat deadly cancer cells. In fact, a quick look around the block sees multiple billion dollar deals in 2014 which include names like Kite Pharma (NASDAQ:KITE), and Seragon Pharmaceuticals.

TapImmune is scheduled to enter Phase II clinical trials at any moment and that would be welcome news for a biotech firm who had already announced a possible uplisting after seeing shares trade as high as $7 during the past 52 weeks.

A push of their development pipeline into Phase II for not one, but two indications simultaneously, would likely create an inflection point in prices and finally start boosting the value of the firm's inexplicably downward trading shares.

In a recent quarterly filing, officials noted that they planned to initiate the two pending Phase II studies in Q4 of 2014:

"The first of which will include a novel Class I antigen in a Phase Ib/II study, providing a vaccine for HER2/neu breast cancer that can stimulate both killer T-cells and helper T-cells. The second Phase II trial is expected to include our folate alpha receptor epitopes and will likely focus on ovarian cancer, which we believe will allow us to proceed with an orphan drug application pending discussion with the FDA."

Already the company has recently reported impressive data from their two Phase I studies conducted at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). Those studies were designed to evaluate the safety and immune response(s) on the same a set of proprietary HER2/neu antigens for a HER2/neu breast cancer vaccine and Folate Receptor Alpha for breast and ovarian cancer respectively.

While TapImmune has a number of unique and broad product opportunities in both cancer and infectious disease, none may be bigger than these two potential treatments and this was further augmented recently by a THIRD phase 1 clinical trial in ovarian cancer using TapImmune's optioned epitope, sponsored entirely by a multi-million dollar grant to Mayo.

Every step that gates them closer to the successful development of those immuno-therapeutic vaccines, represents a push for the kind of valuation Dr. Wilson has been proudly hinting at during recent interviews.

For example, when compared to Roche's (OTCMKTS:RHHBY) $7 billion Herceptin- a drug that treats only 18% of breast cancer patients- doctors and biotech analysts feel that TapImmune's drug candidate would most likely capture an even bigger market share with its ability to treat upwards of 50% of those patients. Some simple valuation techniques adjusted for risk and stage of development would have just their Her2neu drug candidate valued in the hundreds of millions and that would only account for the US market. Add the European market and the numbers get silly very quickly and well beyond his projections.

Their second urgently needed therapeutic targets Ovarian Cancer and also reflects its own blockbuster potential since no other ovarian cancer immunotherapies are currently available.

"The promising data on safety and immune responses are tremendously encouraging and provide a clear scientific rationale for progressing to a Phase II Clinical Trial," said Wilson recently. "In addition to the primary Ovarian indication, this set of antigens and our approach fills a significant need for treatments for difficult to treat cancers for which targeted therapies are not available, for example Triple-negative breast cancer."

Significantly undervalued and poised for significant organic value in the near term, TapImmune is not without its own set of risks as a company.

The company had to complete a significant restructuring of outstanding debt and equity instruments into equity and like most other firms in the biotech space, additional capital will be required to expand their programs in the future. Recent grant funded programs like the one at Mayo are also expected to continue to augment the clinical efforts as more money starts to flow into the growing immunotherapy space from both public and government sources, not to mention the every product hungry big pharma who are snapping up earlier stage promising technology platforms for big numbers, and TapImmune has multiple platforms that could fit very well into their criteria.

We can't help but feel that we are seeing a bottom for share prices and that there are just too many significant catalysts built-in for both near term trading and long-term investment success.

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Author Ray Dirks has been a respected analyst on Wall Street for decades. Ray has written two books, "The Great Wall Street Scandal" and "Heads You Win, Tails You Win", published by McGraw-Hill and Bantam Books respectively.

SOURCE: Ray Dirks Research

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