ImmuPharma PLC (LON:IMM) Chairman Tim McCarthy caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the £8.4 million fundraise, the progress of the Lupuzor Phase III trial, key milestones and the June symposium with Professor Muller
Q1: Recently you raised £8.4 million, can you tell me about those who participated?
A1: Well we raised £8.4 million in February/March of this year in what I have to say was very difficult capital market so we’re delighted to raise the money. The primary reason for raising the money was to pay for the cost of ImmuPharma’s Phase III study in Lupuzor, our treatment for Lupus, and we had very good support from existing shareholders including Aviva, all of the directors participated. We had some new institutional shareholders come on as well, some specialists and also, quite unusually but very encouragingly, the clinical research organisation Simbec-Orion who are running the trial for us also participated in the fundraise alongside everybody else. So delighted to complete that, yes.
Q2: So how is the Lupuzor trial progressing now?
A2: The trial is progressing very well, we have been and we intend to continue to keep shareholders and the market generally updated on how the trial is progressing. So we’re recruiting up to 200 patients across the US and Europe in up to 45 sites in both continents, we are actively recruiting and dosing and as we progress through we will keep the market updated on that recruitment programme but it’s all going very well.
Q3: Now can you tell me what the key milestones are for ImmuPharma PLC for the next 18 months or so?
A3: Yes, of course. Well over the next 6 months, the key milestones will be informing the market about patient recruitments so we will do that at various intervals, the major milestone will be when we’ve completed the recruitment of the 200 patients which should happen later this year and then each patient is in the study for a year. So if you think about the last patient to be recruited and you take 12 months from then, that’s when the trial will be complete in total, so that’ll be some time in the second half of next year and then within a couple of months of that we should have the top line results. So certainly before the end of 2017 we will have the results of this Phase III study which is very pivotal moment for the company and hopefully, with successful results, will be a very pivotal moment for patients as well because this is a disease which isn’t adequately treated at the moment and there is a big need for something in the marketplace.
Q4: There will be a number of symposiums over the 8th and 9th June, what will Professor Sylviane Muller be presenting?
A4: Professor Muller is the inventor of Lupuzor in fact, she works for a very large French government research institute called the CRNS, which is in fact the largest of its kind across Europe. We’ve invited Professor Muller over to London in early June, over 2 days, to present her findings, how she discovered Lupuzor and more specifically the ‘Mechanism of Action’. What I mean by that is how does the drug interact with the body, in particular in this case with the immune system, and allow it to treat the patients as we are doing in the study and that’s a very important symposium for people to understand exactly how the drug is working.
