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Due to unexpected, negative clinical trial results from an earlier stage program, Immunic’s external perception, investor interest and, in particular, the share price were under high pressure in late October/early November 2022. Given the company has an ongoing registrational program with its lead asset, vidofludimus calcium, in multiple sclerosis (MS), which is currently undervalued in the market, the team wanted to focus external communications on this program. The overall goal was to re-focus the attention of investors, analysts and the overall market on this very exciting MS approach and its upcoming milestones. For a small cap biotech company with a broad, diverse development pipeline, investor and analyst interactions are key.
Immunic organized an MS Research and Development (R&D) webcast on November 17. In order to attract as many attendees as possible, the team invited the target groups in several rounds: a save-the-date was sent on October 27, an invitation on November 9, a reminder on November 16 and a final confirmation email to attendees shortly before the event. The invitation included a well-designed flyer to attract people’s interest.
In parallel, management and IR worked intensively on filling the webcast with contents. The team had several organizational meetings to prepare the event. These preparations also included input from the company’s BD, clinical, preclinical, regulatory and CMC teams.
The R&D webcast included two main parts:
- Presentations by Immunic’s management providing an update on the scientific, preclinical and clinical progress of vidofludimus calcium in MS. The presentation also covered newly available data from the company’s clinical phase 2 trial in RRMS showing encouraging signals for vidofludimus calcium for preventing or delaying confirmed disability worsening.
- Presentations of three high-quality, renowned MS key opinion leaders – maybe THE MS experts – joining from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Stanford University School of Medicine and University of Würzburg, Germany. They discussed recent scientific findings and their effect on the MS treatment landscape. In 2022, a row of MS landmark papers was published, on the one hand, providing clear evidence of a direct link between Epstein-Barr virus and MS and, on the other hand, showing that most disease progression is independent of relapse, even in early RMS. The main authors of these papers were present on the R&D call and attracted high external interest.
The MS R&D webcast was a great success for Immunic: Almost 200 attendees listened to the event live, which, for a small biotech company, is a huge number. An additional more than 170 people listened to the recording after the event, so far. The majority of participants were investors (according to the event’s goal) as well as analysts, bankers, journalists, strategic partners and scientists.
Overall, Immunic received extraordinarily positive feedback. The attendees very much appreciated both the updates from the company as well as the scientific and clinical insights from the MS experts. It was highly appreciated that the experts were available for Q&A to comment on the recent findings in the MS space, but also on Immunic’s MS development program from an external perspective. The event and the new MS data were broadly covered in the media.