Marker Therapeutics Inc (MRKR)

[Lady_luck]

Seaking Alpha article... good read so far

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4212367-marker-therapeutics-safer-potentially-effective-car-t-alternative

Marker Therapeutics: A new start
I think that the only way to view the newly merged company is as a new company. Given the fervor for biotech IPO's this year, I was honestly a little surprised that Marker didn’t go it alone and do an IPO, but clearly they saw value in the combination of the two organizations. I have no doubt that part of that rationale is that both companies were similar in their goal which goes back to the beginning of this article regarding stimulating the immune system to safely eliminate cancer. CAR-T therapies do a fair job of eliminating cancer cells but safely? Not so much. I also believe that the leadership of the organization under Dr. Hoang, coupled with the outstanding scientific aptitude brought from Marker will be a fantastic combination. If you are considering this company, you SHOULD DEFINITELY spend an hour listening to Dr. Ann Leen's YouTube data presentation, and especially during the Q&A from 1:03-1:19. The rigor and rationale with which they've conducted Marker's studies so far is nothing short of impressive. The advisory board is no slouch either and includes multiple experts in cell therapies including recent Nobel Prize recipient Jim Allison.

When you look the Marker’s intelligent approach and data set of their technology in over 60 patients, and you overlay that with companies like Kite and Juno who won approved therapies with relatively small numbers of patients, and were then bought out for $11.9B and $9B respectively. The company should quickly become multiples of its current value.

Looking at other recent IPO examples, in particular Allogene (ALLO) which recently IPO'd with a value of over $3B, Marker would appear highly undervalued. Allogene is another CAR-T developer, but with a dataset that is aruguably less mature than Marker's and with a safety profile that is consistent with other CAR-T's. UCART19 had been previously on FDA hold due to patient deaths. In their summer 2018 data release with only 6 children in R/R B cell ALL, the data were interesting, but not fantastic. All patients experienced CRS, and other SAE's were observed. While 5 out of 6 experienced a CR, they all underwent allo-HST post-therapy and only 2 survived greater than 6 months post-HST. Allogenes product is differentiated from other CAR-T's, however, in that any donor's T cells can be used as opposed to a specific patient's. This is why many have referred to Allogene's therapy as an "off-the-shelf" CAR-T. It will still be far more expensive to produce than MultiTAA T cells.

Another recent notable IPO, was for Arvinas (ARVN). Arvinas currently has a $500M market cap for a cancer company that has not even entered clinical trials. Again, this is a pre-IND company with an interesting PROTAC cancer treatment paradigm. PROTAC therapies are designed to link proteins intended for destruction via the ubiquitination/proteasome system. Unlike Takeda's (OTCPK:TKPYY) Velcade, which inhibits the proteasome, PROTAC therapies are hoped to use the proteasome in order to "drug the undruggable" by selectively removing unwanted receptors or cell signaling mediators. While a fascinating therapy, they have never put medicine into a human and are not expected to treat their first patient until sometime in 2019.

I feel that if Marker had IPO'd, they probably could have commanded a market value closer to $2B. Fully diluted, that would give them a share price of around $29.41. I think that the time between the announcement of the merger and the late execution of the merger created a little apathy for TapImmune's share price. But with the successful completion of the merger in the rear view mirror, I believe that the merged company will appreciate in value quickly. I think that the rationale for the merger with TapImmune was built on their common interest in antigen-driven immune stimulation. Their approach was the only difference here, with TapImmune performing vaccinations with antigens intended to build an immune response and Marker doing the same ex vivo in culture. There may be crossover opportunities.

While it's difficult to rationalize a more traditional valuation for the company at this point, if a MultiTAA T cell product were to eventually hit the market at half of the price of the CAR-T therapies, the post Allo-HST AML market alone would probably represent over $1.8B annually. The lymphoma market in active disease could probably be 2x that, but I think the real value generator for Marker could be as maintenance therapy. Here, as an adjuvant maintenance therapy, in multiple cancer indications (including hematological malignancies and solid tumors) Marker could yield unprecedented revenues and would have no competition from CAR-T or any of the other traditional therapies, because all of them have adverse event profiles that would contraindicate their use for this. A cogent discussion around future run-rate revenue simply cannot be had at this point.