What's In The Cards For Immune Design (IMDZ) In Q1 Earnings?

Immune Design Corp. (NASDAQ:IMDZ) isscheduled to report first-quarter 2018 results after the market closes on May 2.

In the last reported quarter, the company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 25.64%. Immune Design topped earnings estimates in all of the trailing four quarters, with an average beat 19.84%.

Immune Design’s shares have lost 10.2% year to date, compared with the industry’s fall of 3.7%.

Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Factors at Play

Being a development-stage biopharmaceutical company, Immune Design has not generated any product revenues yet. It earns revenues from collaboration and licensing agreements, and product sales.

Investors remain focused on the company’s progress based on its pipeline candidates. Immune Design is developing multiple candidates using two discovery platforms — ZVex and GLAAS — for the treatment of various types of cancers. The company’s key pipeline candidates are CMB305 for solid tumor and G100 for merkel cell carcinoma (“MCC”).

CMB305 has been designed under a prime-boost approach, involving the sequential dosing of two complementary agents — LV305 and G305.

Currently, this candidate is being evaluated in soft tissue sarcoma patients both as monotherapy (phase I) and in combination with Roche Holding’s (RHHBY) Tecentriq (phase II). The company plans to initiate a pivotal phase III trial studying CMB305 as monotherapy in synovial sarcoma patients in mid-2018. If the progression free survival endpoint is met, the company intends to file a Biologics License Application and seek approval for CMB305 for the treatment of synovial sarcoma.

The discussion with the FDA was positive regarding CMB305. Consequently, the company had planned to initiate a pivotal phase III trial studying CMB305 as monotherapy in synovial sarcoma patients. The study is expected to start in mid-2018. It will enroll 248 patients aged 12 and older with NY-ESO-1+ synovial sarcoma who will either receive CMB305 monotherapy or placebo. If the progression free survival endpoint is met, the company intends to file a Biologics License Application and seek approval for CMB305 for the treatment of synovial sarcoma.

Meanwhile, G100 is being evaluated in multiple clinical trials, including as a monotherapy with local radiation in a completed phase I study in patients with MCC and in an ongoing investigator-sponsored trial in patients with sarcoma.

It is also being developed as a monotherapy and combination therapy in patients with follicular non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (“NHL”), in a randomized phase Ib/II study. In October 2017, G100 received Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of follicular NHL from the European Medicines Agency.

A potential approval of these pipeline candidates will be a boost for the company.

During the earnings call, we expect Immune Design to shed light on the progress of these ongoing trials.

What Our Model Indicates

Our proven model does not show an earnings beat for Immune Design this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both — a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) — to be able to beat estimates. However, that is not the case here as you will see below.

Zacks ESP: Immune Design has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. This is because both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at a loss of 29 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Immune Design has a Zacks Rank #3, which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, we need to have a positive ESP to be confident about an earnings beat.

Conversely, we caution against Sell-rated stocks (#4 or 5) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.

Stocks That Warrant a Look

Here are some biotech stocks that you may want to consider, as our model shows that these have the right combination of elements to post an earnings beat this quarter.

Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) is scheduled to release results on May 1. The company has an Earnings ESP of +1.36% and a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) is scheduled to release results on May 1. The company has an Earnings ESP of +0.32% and a Zacks Rank #2.

Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ:CELG) is scheduled to release its results on May 4. The company has an Earnings ESP of +0.63% and a Zacks Rank #3.

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