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Immatics (IMTX) Risk Analysis
Risk Overview Q4, 2023
Source: the company's latest filing for the period ended Dec 31, 2023, filed Mar 21, 2024
Risk Change Over Time
- Share Price & Shareholder Rights - Risk 1There is a significant risk that we will be a passive foreign investment company, or PFIC, for our current or future taxable years, which could result in adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences for U.S. investors in our ordinary shares or warrants.
In general, a non-U.S. corporation is a PFIC for any taxable year in which either (i) 75% or more of its gross income consists of "passive income" or (ii) 50% or more of the average quarterly value of its assets consist of assets that produce, or are held for the production of, "passive income." For purposes of these calculations, a non-U.S. corporation is treated as if it holds a proportionate share of the assets of, and receives directly its proportionate share of the income of, any other corporation in which it directly or indirectly owns at least 25%, by value, of the shares of such other corporation. Passive income generally includes interest, dividends, certain non-active rents and royalties (other than certain rents and royalties derived in an active conduct of a trade or business), and capital gains. Cash is generally a passive asset for these purposes. In addition, goodwill (the value of which may be determined by reference to the excess of the sum of the corporation's market capitalization and liabilities over the value of its assets) is generally characterized as an active asset to the extent it is attributable to activities that produce active income. We hold a substantial amount of cash and other passive assets. In addition, our PFIC status for the current and any future taxable year may depend, in large part, on the market price of our ordinary shares from time to time. Our market capitalization has been volatile. Accordingly, to the extent that the value of our non-passive assets is determined by reference to our market capitalization, there is a significant risk that we may be a PFIC for our current taxable year and future taxable years. However, such determination can only be made after the end of the taxable year. If we were a PFIC for any taxable year during which a U.S. holder owns our ordinary shares or warrants, certain adverse U.S. federal income tax consequences could apply to such U.S. holder. See-Taxation-Material U.S. Federal Income Tax Considerations for U.S. Holders-Passive Foreign Investment Company Rules" below.
Risk Highlights Q4, 2023
Risk Word Cloud
Risk Factors Full Breakdown - Total Risks 84
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 1If we do not achieve our projected development and commercialization goals in the timeframes we announce and expect, the commercialization of any of our product candidates may be delayed, and our business will be harmed.
For planning purposes, we sometimes estimate the timing of the accomplishment of various scientific, clinical, regulatory and other product development objectives. These milestones may include our expectations regarding the commencement or completion of scientific studies and clinical trials, the regulatory submissions or commercialization objectives. From time to time, we may publicly announce the expected timing of some of these milestones, such as the completion of an ongoing clinical trial, the initiation of other clinical trials, receipt of regulatory approval or the commercial launch of a product. The achievement of many of these milestones may be outside of our control. All of these milestones are based on a variety of assumptions which may cause the timing of achievement of the milestones to vary considerably from our estimates, including: - our available capital resources or capital constraints we experience;- the rate of progress, costs and results of our clinical trials and research and development activities, including the extent of scheduling conflicts with participating clinicians and collaborators;- our ability to identify and enroll patients who meet clinical trial eligibility criteria;- our receipt of approvals by the FDA, the EMA and comparable regulatory authorities, and the timing thereof;- other actions, decisions or rules issued by regulators;- our ability to access sufficient, reliable and affordable supplies of materials used in the manufacture of our product candidates;- our ability to manufacture and supply clinical trial materials to our clinical sites on a timely basis;- the efforts of our collaborators with respect to the commercialization of our products; and - the securing of, costs related to, and timing issues associated with, commercial product manufacturing as well as sales and marketing activities. If we fail to achieve announced milestones in the timeframes we expect, the commercialization of any of our product candidates may be delayed, and our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects may be adversely affected.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 2For any product candidates developed in combination with other therapies, regulatory approval, safety or supply issues with these other therapies may delay or prevent the development and approval of our product candidates.
For any product candidates developed for use in combination with an approved therapy, we are subject to the risk that the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities could revoke approval of, or that safety, efficacy, manufacturing or supply issues could arise with, the therapy used in combination with our product candidate. If the therapies we use in combination with our product candidates are replaced as the standard of care, the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities may require us to conduct additional clinical trials. The occurrence of any of these risks could result in our product candidates, if approved, being removed from the market or being less successful commercially. For any product candidates developed for us in combination with a therapy that has not been approved by the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities, we may not be able to market our product candidate for use in combination with such an unapproved therapy, unless and until the unapproved therapy receives regulatory approval. These unapproved therapies face the same risks described with respect to our product candidates currently in development, including serious adverse effects and delays in their clinical trials. In addition, other companies may also develop their products or product candidates in combination with the unapproved therapies with which we are developing our product candidates for use in combination. Any setbacks in these companies' clinical trials, including the emergence of serious adverse effects, may delay or prevent the development and approval of our product candidates. If the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities do not approve or revoke their approval of, or if safety, efficacy, manufacturing, or supply issues arise with, therapies we choose to evaluate in combination with any of our product candidates, we may be unable to obtain regulatory approval of or to commercialize such product candidates in combination with these therapies.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 3Breakthrough Therapy Designation, Fast Track Designation and Priority Review Designation by the FDA, or comparable designations by comparable regulatory authorities, for our product candidates may not lead to a faster development or regulatory review or approval process and do not increase the likelihood that a product candidate would receive regulatory approval.
We do not currently have Breakthrough Therapy Designation, Fast Track Designation or Priority Review Designation or comparable designations by comparable regulatory authorities for our product candidates. A breakthrough therapy is defined as a product candidate that is intended, alone or in combination with one or more other drugs, to treat a serious or life-threatening disease or condition, and preliminary clinical evidence indicates that the drug may demonstrate substantial improvement over currently approved therapies on one or more clinically significant endpoints, such as substantial treatment effects observed early in clinical development. For product candidates that have been designated as breakthrough therapies, interaction and communication between the FDA and the sponsor can help to identify the most efficient path for development. A Fast Track Designation may be available if a product candidate is intended for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening condition and preclinical or clinical data demonstrate the potential to address an unmet medical need for this condition. Priority review may be granted for products that are intended to treat a serious or life-threatening condition and, if approved, would provide a significant improvement in safety and effectiveness compared to available therapies. The FDA will attempt to direct additional resources to the evaluation of an application designated for priority review in an effort to facilitate the review. In Europe, the EMA has implemented the so-called "PRIME" (PRIority MEdicines) status in order support the development and accelerate the approval of complex innovative medicinal products addressing an unmet medical need. The PRIME status enables early dialogue with the relevant EMA scientific committees and, possibly, some payers; and thus, reinforces the EMA's scientific and regulatory support. It also opens accelerated assessment of the marketing authorization application (150 days instead of 210 days). The PRIME status, which is decided by the EMA, is reserved to medicines that may benefit from accelerated assessment, i.e., medicines of major interest from a public health perspective, in particular from a therapeutic innovation perspective and that target unmet medical need. The FDA, the EMA and comparable regulatory authorities have broad discretion whether or not to grant Breakthrough Therapy Designation, Fast Track Designation and Priority Review Designation and comparable designations. Accordingly, even if we believe, after completing early clinical trials, that one of our product candidates meets the criteria for such designations, the applicable regulatory authority may disagree and instead determine not to make such designations. Even if we receive such designation for a product candidate, it may not result in a faster development process, review or approval compared to conventional procedures and does not guarantee ultimate approval by the applicable regulatory authority. Many drugs that have received such designations have failed to obtain ultimate approval. In addition, the applicable regulatory authority may decide to rescind such designations if it determines that our product candidates no longer meet the conditions for qualification, including as a result of the product candidates' failure to meet endpoints in any clinical trial.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 4We may pursue orphan drug designation for certain of our product candidates, which we may not receive, and even if we receive such designation, we may be unable to maintain the associated benefits.
Regulatory authorities in some jurisdictions, including the United States and the European Union, may designate drugs for relatively small patient populations as orphan drugs. In the United States, orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as opportunities for grant funding towards clinical trial costs, tax advantages and user fee waivers. In addition, if a product receives the first FDA approval for the indication for which it has orphan designation, the product is entitled to orphan drug exclusivity, which means the FDA may not approve any other application to market the same biologic (meaning, a product with the same principal molecular structural features) for that indication for a period of seven years, except in limited circumstances, such as a showing of clinical superiority over the product with orphan exclusivity or where the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient product quantity. In the European Union, orphan drug designation entitles a party to financial incentives such as reduction of fees or fee waivers and ten years of market exclusivity for the orphan indication following drug or biological product approval, provided that the criteria for orphan designation are still applicable at the time of the granting of the marketing authorization. This period may be reduced to six years if, at the end of the fifth year, the orphan drug designation criteria are no longer met, including where it is shown that the product is sufficiently profitable not to justify maintenance of market exclusivity. However, orphan drug designation neither shortens the development time or regulatory review time of a drug or therapeutic biologic nor gives the drug or therapeutic biologic any advantage in the regulatory review or approval process. We may pursue orphan drug designation for one or more of our product candidates. However, obtaining an orphan drug designation can be difficult, and we may not be successful in doing so. Even if we obtain orphan drug designation for our product candidates in specific indications, we may not be the first to obtain regulatory approval of these product candidates for the orphan-designated indication. In addition, exclusive marketing rights in the United States may be limited if we seek approval for an indication broader than the orphan-designated indication or may be lost if the FDA later determines that the request for designation was materially defective or if the manufacturer is unable to assure sufficient quantities of the product to meet the needs of patients with the rare disease or condition. Furthermore, even if we obtain orphan drug exclusivity for a product, that exclusivity may not effectively protect the product from competition because a different biologic (with different principal molecular structural features) can be approved for the same condition. Even after an orphan product is approved, the FDA can subsequently approve the same biologic for the same condition if the FDA concludes that the later biologic is safer, more effective or makes a major contribution to patient care. Our inability to obtain orphan drug designation for any product candidates for the treatment of rare cancers and/or our inability to maintain that designation for the duration of the applicable exclusivity period, could reduce our ability to make sufficient sales of the applicable product candidate to balance our expenses incurred to develop it.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 5The deviations in our proposed new products from existing products may require us to perform additional testing, which will increase the cost, and extend the time for obtaining approval.
While we have and will continue to implement advancements to the process, the current methods of treatment are very labor intensive and expensive, which has limited their widespread application. We have and will continue to develop new processes that we anticipate will enable more efficient manufacturing of ACT. We may have difficulty demonstrating that the products produced from our new processes are comparable to the existing products. The FDA, the EMA and comparable regulatory authorities may require changes to our manufacturing specifications and/or additional clinical testing before permitting a larger clinical trial with the new processes, and the product may not demonstrate the desired activity in new clinical trials. In the manufacturing of cellular products, even small changes in manufacturing processes could alter the cell types, so our ability to predict the outcomes with newer manufacturing processes is limited. The changes that we have made to the historical manufacturing process may require additional testing, which may increase costs and timelines associated with these developments. Our TCR Bispecific product candidates contain features that have not been previously tested in this composition in clinical trials or marketed products. The FDA, the EMA and comparable regulatory authorities may require additional non-clinical studies before permitting us to enter clinical trials with our product candidates. Regulatory authorities may also ask for additional early-stage trials or production of additional batches of TCR Bispecific product candidates before permitting larger clinical trials or registration-enabling trials. To comply with those requests would increase costs and timelines for the development of our TCR Bispecific product candidates.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 6Certain of our current clinical trials are being conducted outside the United States, and the FDA may not accept data from trials conducted in foreign locations.
Certain current clinical trials of our drug candidates are being conducted or planned to be conducted partially or fully outside the United States. We may also conduct future clinical trials for our drug candidates partially or fully outside the United States. Although the FDA may accept data from clinical trials conducted outside the United States, acceptance of this data is subject to certain conditions imposed by the FDA. For example, the clinical trial must be well designed and conducted and performed by qualified investigators in accordance with ethical principles and good clinical practice ("GCP") requirements. Further, the data must be applicable to the U.S. population and U.S. medical practice in ways that the FDA deems clinically meaningful. In general, the patient population for any clinical trials conducted outside of the United States must be representative of the population for whom we intend to label the product in the United States. In addition, while these clinical trials are subject to the applicable local laws, FDA acceptance of the data will be dependent upon its determination that the trials also complied with all applicable U.S. laws and regulations. There can be no assurance that the FDA will accept data from trials conducted outside of the United States. If the FDA does not accept the data from such clinical trials, it would likely result in the need for additional clinical trials, which would be costly and time-consuming and delay or permanently halt our development of our product candidates.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 7Development of a product candidate intended for use in combination with an already approved product may present more or different challenges than development of a product candidate for use as a single agent.
We evaluate our ACT and TCR Bispecifics product candidates in combination with other therapies, such as checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapies. The development of product candidates for use in combination with another product may present challenges. For example, the FDA may require us to use more complex clinical trial designs, in order to evaluate the contribution of each product and product candidate to any observed effects. It is possible that the results of these trials could show that most or any positive results are attributable to the already approved product. Moreover, following product approval, the FDA may require that products used in conjunction with each other be cross-labelled. To the extent that we do not have rights to already approved products, this may require us to work with another company to satisfy such a requirement. Moreover, developments related to the already approved products may impact our clinical trials for the combination as well as our commercial prospects should we receive marketing approval. Such developments may include changes to the approved product's safety or efficacy profile, changes to the availability of the approved product, and changes to the standard of care.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 8Results from preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of results from late-stage or other clinical trials.
Positive and promising results from preclinical studies and early-stage clinical trials may not be predictive of results from late-stage clinical trials or from clinical trials of the same product candidates. Product candidates in later stages of clinical trials may fail to show the desired safety and efficacy traits despite having progressed through preclinical studies and initial clinical trials. Late-stage clinical trials could differ in significant ways from early-stage clinical trials, including changes to inclusion and exclusion criteria, efficacy endpoints, dosing regimen and statistical design. In particular, we expect there may be greater variability in results for products processed and administered on a patient-by-patient basis, as for our cellular therapy product candidates, than for "off-the-shelf" products, like many other drugs. Therefore, despite positive results observed in early-stage clinical trials, our product candidates may fail to demonstrate sufficient efficacy in our registration-enabling or confirmatory clinical trials.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 9Our product candidates may cause undesirable side effects or have other properties that may delay or prevent their development or regulatory approval or limit their commercial potential.
Undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates or by similar product candidates developed by others could cause us or regulatory authorities to interrupt, delay or halt clinical trials and could result in more restrictive labeling or the denial of regulatory approval by the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities and potential product liability claims. In our cell therapy clinical trials, most commonly reported Grade =3 treatment-emergent adverse events ("TEAEs") were cytopenias. In addition, one patient treated with IMA401 and one patient treated with IMA203CD8 have experienced Grade 5 adverse events, possibly related to the treatments. The IMA401 patient deceased 43 days after the last IMA401 treatment due to (obstructive) pneumonia occurring in the context of tumor progression in the lung and persistent neutropenia, after declining any additional treatment. In case of IMA203CD8, the patient's immediate cause of death was considered to be fatal sepsis, aggravated by the immunosuppression, a high-grade Immune Effector Cell-Associated Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis-Like Syndrome (IEC-HS), and the fast-progressing disease. There can be no assurance that patients treated with our product candidates will not experience these and other serious adverse side effects and there can be no assurance that the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities will not place clinical holds on our current or future clinical trials, the result of which could delay or prevent us from obtaining regulatory approval. In particular, our clinical trials enroll patients who have failed all available standard-of-care treatments. As a result, these patients may be immunocompromised and thus are more susceptible to serious adverse side effects. In addition, certain of our protocols involve further weakening of patients' immune response (e.g., through lymphodepletion) prior to receiving our product candidates, which may further increase the severity and frequency of serious adverse side effects. Further, because our product candidates represent novel approaches to the treatment of cancer, we may be less able to predict the nature, severity and frequency of adverse events and thus less able to undertake measures to prevent serious adverse events and mitigate their effects. For example, infused T cells may be more active than we expect or than we previously observed. Moreover, because our ACTengine product candidates for a specific patient are manufactured using that patient's white blood cells, each patient receives an individually manufactured ACTengine product candidate. As a result, it may be difficult to predict how a patient will respond to that individualized product candidate. This could lead to more severe or prolonged toxicities or even patient deaths, which could result in us or the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities delaying, suspending or terminating one or more of our clinical trials and which could jeopardize regulatory approval. Furthermore, clinical trials by their nature utilize a sample of the potential patient population. With a limited number of subjects and limited duration of exposure, rare and severe side effects of our product candidates may only be uncovered with a significantly larger number of patients exposed to the drug. In addition, some of our product candidates are developed or intended to be used in combination with other therapies. When used in combination, the severity and frequency of undesirable side effects may be greater than the cumulative severity and frequency of such side effects when the therapies are used as monotherapies and the nature of undesirable side effects may be different than such side effects when the therapies are used as monotherapies. If we or others identify undesirable side effects caused by our product candidates or those of our competitors, a number of potentially significant negative consequences could result, including: - we may encounter delays or difficulties in enrolling patients for our clinical trials due to a negative perception of our product candidates' safety and tolerability profile;- we and/or regulatory authorities may temporarily or permanently put our clinical trials on hold;- we may be unable to obtain regulatory approval for our product candidates;- regulatory authorities may withdraw or limit their approvals of our product candidates;- regulatory authorities may require the addition of labeling statements, such as a contraindication, boxed warnings or additional warnings;- the FDA may require development of a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy with Elements to Assure Safe Use as a condition of approval;- we may decide to remove our product candidates from the marketplace;- we may be subject to regulatory investigations and government enforcement actions;- we could be sued and held liable for harm caused to patients, including as a result of hospital errors; and - our reputation may suffer. Any of these events could prevent us from achieving or maintaining regulatory approval and market acceptance of our product candidates and could substantially increase commercialization costs.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 10Clinical trials are expensive, time-consuming and difficult to design and implement, and our clinical trial costs may be higher than for more conventional therapeutic technologies or drug products.
Clinical trials are expensive and difficult to design, implement and conduct, in part because they are subject to rigorous regulatory requirements. Because our ACT product candidates are based on new cell therapy technologies and manufactured on a patient-by-patient basis, we expect that such candidates will require extensive research and development and have substantial manufacturing costs per dose. Our TCR Bispecific product candidates also require extensive research and development, as the applicable technology is new and experience with developing such biologics is rare in the field. Moreover, the development of a companion diagnostic will also require extensive research and development, and such companion diagnostic must be suitable to support both enrollment into larger clinical trials and routine hospital procedures after marketing approval. Any failure or delay in developing a suitable companion diagnostic will delay or make it impossible to conduct larger clinical trials for ACT product candidates and/or TCR Bispecific product candidates. In addition, costs to treat patients with recurrent and/or refractory cancer and to treat potential side effects that may result from our product candidates, non-investigational medicinal products, rescue or prophylactic medication applied in our clinical trials can be significant. Some clinical trial sites do not bill or obtain coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance or other third-party payors for some or all of these costs for patients enrolled in our clinical trials, and we can be required by those trial sites to pay such costs. In countries outside the United States, we expect that all costs related to the clinical trial and to the management of study patients (for example, management of adverse reactions or hospitalization) are paid by the sponsor of the clinical trial. As trial designs for development of our product candidates are complex, our clinical trial costs are likely to be significantly higher per patient than those of more conventional therapeutic technologies or drug products. At some point, we may combine two or more of our ACT or TCR Bispecific product candidates within one clinical trial or within a multi-TCR-T or multi-TCR Bispecifics concept in order to enhance clinical efficacy results and to increase the patient population. The setup and conduct of such multi-TCR-T or multi-TCR Bispecifics clinical trials is expensive and may bear unknown risks, such as regulatory, preclinical, safety and manufacturing risks. In addition, our proposed personalized product candidates involve several complex and costly manufacturing and processing steps, the costs of which will be borne by us. We are also responsible for the manufacturing costs of products for patients that do not receive the product due to any reason (for example, rapid degradation of general health status, not meeting inclusion/exclusion criteria for infusion). Depending on the number of patients that we ultimately screen and enroll in our trials, the number of trials that we may need to conduct, and the companion diagnostic we need to develop, our overall clinical trial costs may be higher than for more conventional treatments.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 11If we experience delays or difficulties in patient enrollment for clinical trials, our research and development efforts and the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals could be significantly delayed or prevented.
Commencement and successful and timely completion of clinical trials require us to enroll a sufficient number of eligible patients to participate in these trials as required by the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities. Any delay or difficulty in patient enrollment could significantly delay or otherwise hinder our research and development efforts and delay or prevent receipt of necessary regulatory approvals. Despite diligent planning of our clinical trials and analysis of their feasibility regarding patient recruitment, we may experience difficulties, delays or inability in patient enrollment in our clinical trials for a variety of reasons, including: - the size and nature of the patient population;- the severity and incidence of the disease under investigation;- the eligibility criteria for the study in question, including any misjudgment of, and resultant adjustment to, the appropriate ranges applicable to the exclusion and inclusion criteria;- the size of the study population required for analysis of the trial's primary endpoints;- the ability to recruit clinical trial investigators with the appropriate competencies and experience;- the number of clinical trial sites and the proximity of prospective patients to those sites;- the design of the trial and the complexity for patients and clinical sites;- the nature, severity and frequency of adverse side effects associated with our product candidates;- the screening procedures and the rate of patients failing screening procedures;- the ability to provide appropriate screening assays;- the risk that patients' general health conditions do not allow the conduct of study/screening procedures (for example, tumor biopsy, or leukapheresis) or application of lymphodepletion regimen;- the ability to manufacture patient products appropriately (for example, at a sufficient high dose, or with sufficiently active T cells);- the efforts to facilitate timely enrollment in clinical trials and the effectiveness of recruiting publicity;- the patient referral practices of physicians within the same hospital as well as within other hospitals or private practices;- competing clinical trials for similar therapies, other new therapeutics, new combination treatments, new medicinal products;- approval of new indications for existing therapies or approval of new therapies in general or changes in standard of care;- clinicians' and patients' perceptions as to the potential advantages and side effects of the product candidate being studied in relation to other available therapies, including any new drugs or treatments that may be approved or become standard of care for the indications we are investigating;- the ability to obtain and maintain patient consents; and - inability of clinical sites to enroll patients as healthcare capacities are required to cope with natural disasters, epidemics or other health system emergencies. Not all patients suffering from a specific cancer that is in principle addressable by our product candidates are eligible for our clinical trials and therapies. First, patients must express a specific genetic marker called HLA-A*02. While this marker is found on approximately 40-50% of individuals in North America and Europe, it is less frequent in other populations, such as China or Japan. If human leukocyte antigen ("HLA") screening for a patient shows that HLA-A*02 is not expressed, he or she cannot be treated with our current product candidates. Second, the prevalence of the targets addressed by our product candidates differs between different tumor entities. For a given patient, a biomarker assay must be performed in order to find out whether he or she expresses one of the targets and can be treated with one of our product candidates. We cannot be certain that the anticipated and assumed target prevalence rates are confirmed in the patient populations of our clinical trials, and lower target prevalence rates may be experienced. Third, further eligibility criteria are in place to ensure that the patients can tolerate and potentially benefit from the treatment. Thus, only a few of the patients screened for our clinical trials will receive cellular or TCR Bispecifics products. Patients may therefore be hesitant to consent to our trials, and overall, many more patients will have to be screened to treat the targeted number of patients. It is uncertain how many more patients we will be required to screen. If the required number of patient screenings is much higher than anticipated, our clinical trial costs may increase. To mitigate this risk, we are testing several tumor targets in parallel in our clinical trials and have further product candidates against other HLA-types in early preclinical development. However, we cannot be certain whether this will be successful and effective in enhancing recruitment. Our clinical trials will compete with other clinical trials for product candidates that are in the same therapeutic areas as our product candidates, and this competition will reduce the number and types of patients available to us because some eligible patients may instead opt to enroll in a competitor's trial. Because the number of qualified clinical investigators is limited, we expect to conduct some of our clinical trials at the same clinical trial sites that some of our competitors use, which will reduce the number of patients who are available for our clinical trials at such clinical trial sites. Enrolling patients at the same sites as our competitors may compromise the quality and conclusiveness of our clinical data by introducing bias. Moreover, because our product candidates represent a departure from more commonly used methods for cancer treatment, potential patients and their doctors may be inclined to use conventional therapies, such as chemotherapy and approved immunotherapies, rather than enroll patients in any clinical trial. In addition, potential enrollees in our ACT trials may opt to participate in other clinical trials because of the length of time between the time that their tumor is analyzed, and the cellular product is manufactured and infused back into the patient. Challenges in recruiting and enrolling suitable patients to participate in clinical trials could increase costs, affect the timing and outcome of our planned clinical trials and result in delays to our current development plan for our product candidates.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 12Delays in the commencement and completion of clinical trials could increase costs and delay or prevent regulatory approval and commercialization of our product candidates.
We cannot guarantee that clinical trials of our product candidates will be conducted as planned or completed on schedule, if at all. A failure of one or more clinical trials can occur at any stage of the clinical trial process, and other events may cause us to temporarily or permanently stop a clinical trial. Events that may prevent successful or timely commencement and completion of clinical development include: - negative preclinical data;- delays in receiving the required regulatory clearance from the appropriate regulatory authorities to commence clinical trials or amend clinical trial protocols, including any objections to our INDs or CTAs or protocol amendments from regulatory authorities;- delays in reaching, or a failure to reach, a consensus with regulatory authorities on study design;- delays in reaching, or a failure to reach, an agreement on acceptable terms with prospective independent clinical investigators, CROs and clinical trial sites, the terms of which can be subject to extensive negotiation and may vary significantly among different investigators, CROs and clinical trial sites;- difficulties in obtaining required Institutional Review Board ("IRB") or ethics committee approval at each clinical trial site;- challenges in recruiting and enrolling suitable patients that meet the study criteria to participate in clinical trials;- the inability to enroll a sufficient number of patients in clinical trials to ensure adequate statistical power to detect statistically significant treatment effects;- imposition of a clinical hold by regulatory authorities or IRBs for any reason, including safety concerns and non-compliance with regulatory requirements;- failure by independent clinical investigators, CROs, other third parties or us to adhere to clinical trial requirements;- failure to perform in accordance with the FDA's good clinical practices ("GCP") or applicable regulatory guidelines in other jurisdictions;- the inability to manufacture adequate quantities of a product candidate or other materials necessary in accordance with current Good Manufacturing Practices ("cGMPs") and current Good Tissue Practices ("cGTPs") to conduct clinical trials;- lower than anticipated patient retention rates;- difficulties in maintaining contact with patients after treatment, resulting in incomplete data;- ambiguous or negative interim results;- our independent clinical investigators, CROs or clinical trial sites failing to comply with regulatory requirements or meet their contractual obligations to us in a timely manner, or at all, deviating from the protocol or dropping out of a clinical trial;- unforeseen safety issues, including occurrence of adverse events associated with the product candidate that are viewed to outweigh the product candidate's potential benefits;- changes in regulatory requirements and guidance that require amending or submitting new clinical protocols;- lack of adequate funding to continue the clinical trial; or - delays and disruptions as a result of health pandemics or geopolitical events. Delays, including delays caused by the above factors, can be costly and could negatively affect our ability to complete a clinical trial. Further, there can be no assurance that submission of an IND, IND amendment or CTA will result in the FDA or any comparable regulatory authority allowing testing and clinical trials to begin, or that, once begun, issues will not arise that suspend or terminate such clinical trials. The manufacturing and preclinical safety and efficacy testing requirements of both ACT and TCR Bispecifics remain emerging and evolving fields. Accordingly, we expect chemistry, manufacturing and control related topics, including product specification, as well as preclinical safety testing, will be a focus of IND reviews, which may delay the allowance of INDs by the FDA or CTA approval by comparable regulatory authorities. If we are not able to successfully complete clinical trials, we will not be able to obtain regulatory approval and will not be able to commercialize our product candidates.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 13Our current product candidates are in various stages of development, and it is possible that none of our product candidates will ever become commercial products.
Our success depends heavily on the successful further development of our current and future product candidates and our research pipeline and regulatory approval of our current and future product candidates, all of which are subject to risks and uncertainties beyond our control. We are conducting clinical trials for IMA203, IMA401 and IMA402 and preclinical studies for our other product candidates. There can be no assurance that any of our product candidates will prove to be safe, effective or commercially viable treatments for cancer. If we discontinue development of a product candidate, we will not receive the anticipated revenues from that product candidate, and we may not receive any return on our investment in that product candidate. We may discontinue product candidates if such product candidates do not prove to be safe and effective, or for other reasons, such as changes in the competitive environment or the standard of care and the prioritization of our resources. We may also find that the development of a companion diagnostic for our product candidates is more difficult or more expensive than anticipated, resulting in an inability to provide the required diagnostic testing for our clinical trials, or if approved, for the market. Moreover, because of the complexity and novelty of our companion diagnostic biomarker, there are only a limited number of providers who have the capability of supporting the development of a companion diagnostic. Should any of our clinical research organizations ("CROs") fail to meet our development goals, it may take us significant time to find a replacement, if we are able to find a replacement at all. Due to the uncertain and time-consuming clinical development and regulatory approval process, we may not successfully develop any of our product candidates and may choose to discontinue the development of any of our product candidates. Therefore, it is possible that none of our current product candidates will ever become commercial products. Our failure to develop and commercialize our current and future product candidates could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and prospects.
- Innovation / R&D - Risk 14Our product candidates represent novel approaches to the treatment of diseases, and there are many uncertainties regarding the development of our product candidates.
Human immunotherapy products are a new category of therapeutics. Because this is a relatively new and expanding area of novel therapeutic interventions, there are many uncertainties related to development of our product candidates. There can be no assurance as to the number of required clinical trials, the length of the trial period, the number of patients the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities will require to be enrolled in the trials in order to establish the safety and efficacy of immunotherapy products, or that the data generated in these trials will be acceptable to the FDA, the EMA or comparable regulatory authorities to support marketing approval. The FDA, the EMA and comparable regulatory authorities may take longer than usual to come to a decision on any BLA, MAA or similar marketing application that we submit and may ultimately determine that there is not enough data, information or experience with our product candidates to support an approval decision. Regulatory authorities may also require that we conduct additional post-marketing studies or implement risk management programs.
See a full breakdown of risk according to category and subcategory. The list starts with the category with the most risk. Click on subcategories to read relevant extracts from the most recent report.
