Marker Therapeutics Inc (MRKR)

[esedu]

Twiz, it may not seem impressive with all the checkpoint inhibitor trials ongoing, but believe me when I say it is a huge deal for vaccine immuno oncology. Being cross-invested in Galena, I participated in a conference call with Dr. George Peoples, one of the leading pioneers in breast cancer vaccines, and he said 2 things that really stuck out to me.

1) He had originally wanted to create a multi-epitope vaccine, but licensing issues with different patent holding institutions stopped that from happening.

2) Combined vaccine + CI trials is where the current cutting edge thinking of the field is. So many vaccines in the past have "failed" when they were tested in the treatment setting, and what we see today with vaccines is that they are now basically restricted to adjuvant therapy. HOWEVER, it is theorized that the synergistic effect of a vaccine + CI will allow vaccines to work in treating solid tumors. This will broaden the applicability of not only TPIV200 but all cancer vaccines. I'm actually VERY curious to see the design of this study because it has potential to have enormous implications for the entire field.