Biotech Values

[mcbio]

JNCE @ JPM19

JNCE has obviously been off to a poor start as a public company with the early initial disappointing data from their lead IO drug JTX-2011 (anti-ICOS). I gave a listen to their JPM presentation just because they are still relatively young and I like to follow novel IO companies and shares are below cash (no position).

They claim they have identified the best setting for JTX-2011 and they think it works best in patients that have ICOS Hi CD4 cells. For the patients that did show good response from their prior data (was a small sub-set), they had these ICOS Hi CD4 cells and they claim they emerged during treatment (either during JTX-2011 mono therapy or in combo with nivolumab). The poorest responders had ICOS Low CD4 cells.

They're moving forward in their next trial testing JTX-2011 in combo with ipilimumab as they claim CTLA-4 inhibitors do generate ICOS Hi CD4 cells. They also think they have identified patients from the prior trial that have certain characteristics where treatment with JTX-2011 (or perhaps some other drug not limited to a CTLA-4 inhibitor) will make them more prone to generate ICOS Hi CD4 cells and thus lead to good outcome.

Anyone see any chance for success here or just a bunch of data mining from their prior (mostly disappointing) trial?