# Northland Capital Partners Q&A with Vadim Alexandre: ImmuPharma PLC

- Link: https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/northland-capital-partners-qa-vadim-alexandre-immupharma-plc/412722419
- Published: 2017-01-26T12:17:31+00:00
- Author: Amilia Stone

**Northland Capital Partners** Head of Research Vadim Alexandre caught up with DirectorsTalk
for an exclusive interview to discuss **ImmuPharma PLC** (LON:IMM)

 

**Q1: Now Vadim, Northland have just been appointed as nominated adviser and sole
broker, with immediate effect, to ImmuPharma PLC, what are your thoughts on the 
company?**

**A1**: So ImmuPharma’s a rare gem on AIM in that it’s a company with a late-state
drug development asset, there aren’t that many and what we mean by that is that 
it has a Phase III asset, a drug that’s Phase III in terms of clinical trial development.
Overall, what I see is that ImmuPharma is grossly undervalued, basically a drug 
with this stage of asset development usually it is significantly more valued than
where it is, currently ImmuPharma’s market cap is just over £50 million, US peers
in that space are in the hundreds of millions. So, there’s a rare opportunity here
to get into a relatively low risk asset at a good price.

 

**Q2: What are ImmuPharma’s prospects for the next few years?**

**A2**: In terms of this trial, so this is their lead asset which is a drug called
Lupuzor, it’s for the treatment of lupus, that trial is ongoing, in fact they just
announced, at the end of the last year, that enrolment is complete for that trial.
So not only are they in Phase III trials for that treatment but the trial itself
is fully enrolled which means that we can expect a read-out from that trial before
the year-end of this year-end and that a positive read-out in that trial would be
a substantial achievement for the company. We would expect that to have a major 
re-rating in the share price especially given, as I was saying previously, that 
the shares I believe are grossly undervalued. Finally, they have other assets in
other programmes, they have an oncology programme which is Phase II ready and they
have some pre-clinical assets as well, all of which we hope to see some news flow
from but the key here really is the read-out this year on that Phase III trial and
again, enrolment complete sets a timeline which we can almost be sure that that 
read-out should happen sometime this year.

 

**Q3: Who are ImmuPharma’s closest peers in the UK?**

**A3**: There is another company called Motif Bio PLC (LON:MTFB), it’s not a peer
in terms of the same asset class so it’s in a different area, it’s an antibiotic,
however it’s a Phase III as well, and that company also, right now, is conducting
two Phase III trials which are supposed to read-out in the next quarter, like I 
was saying, the key there is that they’re late-stage companies. More importantly
is, in terms of the exact area in which ImmuPharma is in, there’s a drug called 
Benlysta which is a [GlaxoSmithKline](https://www.directorstalkinterviews.com/ftse-company/glaxosmithkline-plc/gsk.l)
plc (GSK) drug, you were talking about peers well it’s interesting to know that 
Glaxo bought that drug or bought in the rights to that drug from another company
called Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ:HGSI). They bought a 50% stake in it, well 
the residual 50% stake that they didn’t have they were jointly developing this drug
Benlysta for lupus, for $3.5 billion or something like that, just over $3 billion
so it gives you an idea of the potential valuation of a successful drug, a new successful
drug like ImmuPharma’s Lupuzor, how much it can command in terms of interest from
a large cap pharma.

 

##### _Motif Bio PLC (MTFB) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The Company is engaged in development of antibiotics, which are designed for treatment of infections caused by multi-drug resistant bacteria. _

##### _GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) is a healthcare company. The Company is engaged in the creation and discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, over-the-counter (OTC) medicines and health-related consumer products. _

##### _Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) is a biopharmaceutical company. The Company’s products include BENLYSTA (belimumab) for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and raxibacumab for inhalation anthrax._

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