Immune Design (IMDZ) Posts Lower-than-Expected Q3 Loss

Immune Design Corp. (NASDAQ:IMDZ) reported third-quarter 2016 loss of 60 cents per share, narrower than Zacks Consensus Estimate of 71 cents but significantly wider than the year-ago loss of 37 cents. The company’s shares gained 22.2% following its third-quarter earnings release.

Immune Design’s total revenue was $8.2 million, up 76.4% year over year primarily due to a $7 million milestone related to a collaboration with Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) to develop and commercialize products for the treatment of peanut allergy. The top line also benefitted from product sales ($0.4 million) of glucopyranosyl lipid A (a product from the company’s GLAAS platform) to Sanofi and revenues ($0.8 million) received under collaboration with Sanofi for the G103 HSV2 therapeutic vaccine.

Quarterly revenues were also above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.5 million.

Quarter in Detail

Research and development (R&D) expenses were up 35.2% to $11.2 million primarily due to the company’s progress with the ongoing R&D programs, including phase I and phase II studies.

General and administrative expenses increased 172.5% to $9.6 million due to the settlement and license agreements with Theravectys related to the acquisition (Oct 2016) of certain present and future intellectual property rights, and Theravectys’ Jul 2014 litigation, along with related claims and counterclaims.

Pipeline Update

The company is developing multiple candidates using its two discovery platforms – ZVex and GLAAS – for the treatment of various types of cancer. Key pipeline candidates include CMB305 and G100. CMB305 has been designed under a prime-boost approach, involving the sequential dosing of two complementary agents – LV305 (from the ZVex platform) and G305.

Presently, CMB305 is being evaluated in soft tissue sarcoma (STS) patients both as monotherapy and in combination with an anti-PD-L1 antibody. While follow-up continues in the two fully enrolled monotherapy phase I studies, the same is ongoing in a phase II study comparing CMB305 plus Tecentriq compared with Tecentriq alone.

A randomized phase II study in collaboration with Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) for the evaluation of the safety and efficacy of G100, with low-dose local radiation and Keytruda, for the treatment of follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) is also currently underway.

Immune Design intends to submit data from these studies for presentation at American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2017.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Immune Design currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A better-ranked stock in the health care sector is Cambrex Corp. (NYSE:CBM) , which sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Cambrex’s earnings estimates have increased from $2.46 to $2.60 for 2016 but remained unchanged for 2017 over the last 60 days. The company has posted a positive earnings surprise in three of the trailing four quarters with an average beat of 19.78%.

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