ImmuPharma PLC (LON:IMM) Chairman Tim McCarthy caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss their Lupuzor Phase III study
Q1: Now the US is at full capacity regarding the 11 sites, 1 extra than initially forecasted, how pleased are you with the overall activity in the US?
A1: Very pleased actually, they’ve been very responsive in terms of recruiting patients and the one extra site just illustrates that, we’ve had that demand to open up another site, so yes absolutely delighted.
Q2: 5 sites open in Europe, are there any key countries that demonstrated early traction in patient recruitment?
A2: Yes, just to clarify, that’s actually 5 countries and then within each country we have a number of sites and I don’t think there are any particular countries that I would highlight, they’re all giving us very good feedback in terms of the reaction from both the physicians themselves and the patients. So generally overall, as we’ve found in the States as well, very good reception for the trial and, as we’ve discussed before in previous interviews, the pressing need to get a new treatment out there for these lupus patients is demonstrating itself really from the demand for patients going into the study and that applied across the US and Europe.
Q3: Now positive news on the Mauritius site today, as you say we only spoke about this last week, how confident are you in recruiting the full 30 patients into this trial?
A3: We’re confident and as you say we spoke about this last week when we put the announcement out to say that the Mauritius site was open and just to remind everybody, that was a bit of a surprise for us to open the Mauritius site, a pleasant surprise. We were invited by the President of Mauritius and the local lupus association for them to participate in the study, which we’re delighted about and I think two things, one, the high incidents of lupus in the population in Mauritius is evident by them wanting to join and also the fact that they have suggested they can recruit up to 30 patients in the study is another indication of their keenness. That has just demonstrated to us with what we’ve confirmed today that there’s over 10 patients already in the study and we only opened a week ago in Mauritius so that’s boding really well actually.
Q4: Looking at the last quarter of this year, what would be your key milestones for the period?
A4: Well as we’ve always said ImmuPharma want to keep the market and our shareholders updated on the progress of the study so I would foresee that we will continue to update the market accordingly as we have done today, we will confirm when new countries are open for example, Italy and the UK we are expecting to open, to start recruiting, in the next few weeks as we said so in the announcement. Of course, I guess what everybody’s waiting for is at some point before the end of the year we will confirm that we have got the whole of the 200 patients into the study and that’s obviously quite a pivotal moment so yes, we’ll be updating the market as and when we think it necessary.
