Recently, a very interesting podcast event was hosted on Clarivate Plc’s podcast regarding the ongoing developments in and around Alzheimer’s disease. Experts were asked about the exciting innovations that are going on in the search for treatments of Alzheimer’s disease and how it is evolving. The podcast was titled, “Drugs to Watch: Innovation in Alzheimer’s disease research.” Jerre Stead, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Clarivate Plc, and Jonathan Searles, Senior Director on the CNS/Ophthalmology therapy team at Clarivate joined Mei Mei Hu, Chief Executive Officer at Vaxxinity, Hans J. Moebius, Chief Medical Officer at Athira Pharma, Raymond J. Tesi, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Medical Officer at INmune Bio (NASDAQ: INMB), a VP Watchlist company. On the program, Dr. Tesi specifically discussed “the Golden age of neurodegenerative disease drug development after the FDAs landmark decision on Biogen’s aducanumab.” You can listen to the podcast on Spitify by clicking here.
INmune Bio reported positive Phase 1b Alzheimer’s data in January 2021 demonstrating that XPro1595 decreased neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration biomarkers in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. The company is planning to initiate two Phase 2 clinical trials of XPro1595, in Alzheimer’s and Treatment Resistant Depression, in 2021. “Demonstrating changes in neuroinflammatory biomarkers across multiple measures (CSF and MRI) and assays in a small dataset gives us great confidence that XPro1595 is having the desired effect in the CNS. To see an impact on AD relevant disease pathways by three months that are sustained in patients that opted to enroll in the extension study for an additional nine months is more that we could have hoped for at this stage of development and will be of enormous value in planning the Phase 2 study.” said CJ Barnum, Ph.D., Head of Neurosciences at INmune Bio.
Shares of INmune Bio (INMB) closed trading Monday at $18.74. Its 52-wk range is $4.5-$29.99. Shares of this low float biotech (~14.93M outstanding w/ 29.81% insider ownership) stock have been on significant upward move since we added the company to the VP Watchlist in May when the stock was in the $9 range.
INMB closed Q1/2021 with cash of $45.3M, which management believes is enough to fund operations into Q4/2022. Per our beliefs, INMB’s biggest value generator is its Phase 1 AD program, with additional results due later this year and their Phase 2 to start in in the 2nd half of this year.
On June 14, INmune Bio, Inc. (INMB), announced that it entered into a new $15M credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and an affiliate of SVB Financial Group. INmune intends to use the proceeds from the facility to partially fund the buyout of an option held by Xencor, Inc., resulting from INmune’s in-licensing of XPro1595 (now known by its generic name, pegipanermin) in October 2017. XPro1595 is a next-generation inhibitor of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) that uses a dominant-negativeTNF technology that is very different from approved TNF inhibitors that block the effects of both soluble and trans-membrane TNF. Pegipanermin neutralizes soluble TNF, without affecting trans-membrane TNF or TNF receptors. XPro1595 could have substantial beneficial effects in patients with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases by decreasing neuroinflammation. Total consideration to be paid to Xencor by INmune is $18.3 million, comprised of $15 million of cash and $3.3 million of INMB shares at a price of $17.14 resulting in the issuance of 192,533 shares. Pursuant to the original 2017 in-licensing agreement, INmune granted Xencor an option to purchase an additional number of shares of common stock equal to 10% of INmune’s fully diluted company shares for a period of seven years. The retirement of the Xencor option eliminates an estimated 2.1 million shares of potential future common stock dilution upon exercise of the option. 
