Immunocore Holdings plc (IMCR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
September 14, 2026
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Sean Laaman
analystThank you. I'm Sean Laaman, Head of U.S. Mid-Cap Biotech Equity Research here at Morgan Stanley, and welcome to Morgan Stanley's Global Healthcare Conference. Before we commence, just to make you aware of some important disclosures, please see those disclosures at the Morgan Stanley Research Disclosure website at www.morganstanley.com/researchdisclosures. And if you have any questions on those, please reach out to your Morgan Stanley sales representative.For this session, we have Immunocore, and from Immunocore, we have the CEO, Bahija Jallal, and CFO and Head of Corporate Development, Travis Coy. Both of you, and thanks for your time. Maybe the first couple of questions just on the macro outlook. So, you know, how is the rise of China origin innovation changing your competitive positioning, if at all, and does it change your R&D and BD playbook?
Bahija Jallal
executiveSure. First of all, thank you for having us. China has been fastest in areas where the biology is known, for instance, like checkpoint inhibitors, ADCs, and bispecifics against extracellular domain. So the pressure is real, and I think if your edge was to get to a known target fast, that would be, and the competitive edge is very thinning. Where we sit, we are in the TCR, and speed is not our, it's not the edge that we go after because we are really dealing with something very complex inside the intracellular, and that complex of HLA and peptide, how it interacts with the TCR. That means TCR engineering and specificity is very important. So that's not, the speed is not our problem right now, but really finding the right target is. I think where it has an impact now is definitely on the business development side of things, and I think when you look at that, China definitely set the bar for what a Phase 1 asset, for instance, is, and with that, and demand, really when the cost is not an issue, then because of that supply and demand, the bar becomes very higher, and the scrutiny and the judgment of what assets you bring is very important. And I would say, I will finish just with this 1 point. It's not the differentiation is no longer, you know, how fast you can get there, but how you can have something that cannot be, that's harder to copy, basically.
Sean Laaman
analystSure, thank you. And are you implementing AI adoption across your business? And has it already changed the decision, a timeline, a cost, or a PR?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, I think it's an amazing technology. I would describe it that way. What it had already had an impact for us is the upstream. So basically what we used to do is, like I said, the complex of HLA and peptide is really, really very finicky, and how the TCR sits on that is something that we used to do crystal structure to even know how this is happening, and you can imagine that it's tedious, it takes time and stuff like that. We don't do it anymore thanks to AI simulation, and things like that. We actually do all that aspect in silico. I think where I am really excited about, I cannot say that we do it systematically today, is when you look at the whole drug development process. And if you can just focus on compressing time, and you improve by 1%, this is the challenge I'm giving my organization. You can improve 1% in every single step. You can imagine how we can reduce that lengthy time. So things like what we do today, for instance, how to answer the RFIs, you know, which come from regulatory agencies, how we automate all that, and how we can put AI into work. So there is a lot, lot to do, and I'm really excited about that.
Sean Laaman
analystWonderful, thank you. And last question before we go Immunocore specific. Which policy variable, FDA, Medicare negotiation, MFN, tariffs, or global pricing, matters most to your economics, and what have you changed, if anything, because of it?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, yes, so I think I would, without hesitation, I would say FDA and predictability. I think that has a huge impact. I think where we sit as a company today, we are with KIMMTRAK, more of a rare disease with small populations. So the impact on tariffs and pricing and stuff like that doesn't fall on us the same way as most of the big companies here. Having said that, where it's really we cannot edge is with the FDA, the predictability, because we have, for instance, we have 3 Phase 3 trials that are ongoing. That's millions of dollars. That's also a long time. And what you want to have is that the goals don't change by the time you arrive there. So I would say that that's really the big thing. We didn't change anything, and I don't think anyone can tell you that you can change things especially when it regards to policies that will change anyway. But you have to be prepared. You have to run scenarios for yourself, and that's exactly what we're doing.
Sean Laaman
analystThank you. I've got a question here on the platform and then I'll go specific. I might put my tebentafusp questions closer to the front now after this morning. On the oncology side, what still differentiates an ImmTAC bispecific from the growing field of TCR-based and other T-cell engager approaches, 5 years post the commercialization of the first one?
Bahija Jallal
executiveI'd like to say 5 years into it, which I really love, you know, from being a pioneer in this area, I would say it is no longer a differentiator that the TCR-based therapies are a category of, you know, compounds, or, you know, how to treat patients, which is great. What it still is, I think, is basically we have the possibility to access 90% of the proteome, the intracellular, and we can treat more, you know, cold tumors and hot tumors at the same time. And what is true 5 years into it is we took a molecule from the beginning to becoming a standard of care in a disease that didn't see innovation. So that's really, for me, the 5 years. But I want to finish just with 1 point that's really important, and how we differentiate ourselves is the fact that we treated more than 2,000 patients. And we have data not only in the clinic, but in the real world. And what's really important is how we take this information back to research to continue to innovate in that space, and that's differentiating, and that's, you know, we can basically say that we have that unique to us today.
Sean Laaman
analystWonderful. Thank you. TEBE-AM is a meaningful near-term catalyst, top line OS possible by year-end, and enrollment down to the teens. In your view, what would a positive result mean for how the audience should value the earlier line expansion story?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, I think, you know, so we're very happy with the announcing that we finished the trial. That will be, you know, for a company like us, the second Phase 3 trial that we did with this team, so I'm very happy with that. And I think the answer to your question is two parts, right? So 1 is the commercial one, which today we treat 1,000 patients in uveal melanoma. If we are in the lucky situation where this is positive, it expands to 4,000 additional patients. And I think that that is really that expansion on the commercial level that we look forward to. And the other story for Immunocore, for some reason, I think people think that uveal melanoma was a lower bar. Actually, it was a really high bar because it was no innovation in 40 years or something like that. So that, for me, that was the highest bar for KIMMTRAK, but here it will expand then into cutaneous melanoma, we already showed ovarian. So I have no doubt that this platform will expand even more.
Sean Laaman
analystSure. Thank you. On the bar for success, the 1-year OS benchmark in second line has been around 55%. Your Phase 1B showed roughly 75%, and you've designed the study for a result that's both stat-seeking and clinically meaningful. What magnitude of OS benefit do you think the community would view as genuinely practice-changing?
Bahija Jallal
executiveI've been saying that today that I am not, a few months before the data, put any numbers out there. So I'm not going to do that. Having said that, I think what's practice changing in this population is definitely bringing, it depends on where you stand, right? And in this population, on second line-plus cutaneous melanoma that have basically nothing, bringing an overall survival will be practice changing because that's basically a very solid and golden standard in oncology. So if we're lucky enough to have that as positive, I think that's practice changing, and that's what we look forward to. I think we can deal with the commercial.
Sean Laaman
analystSure, and I'll ask this question, but I think you'll bat me back, but just, you know, the 3 arms, which do you think has the most importance for any commercial label?
Bahija Jallal
executiveAny, any way we have that. So we have in the trial, we have, we're really in a good position where we have pembrolizumab plus KIMMTRAK and KIMMTRAK by itself. If KIMMTRAK by itself is the best way, we know how to deal with that, and it will be easy. If it's pembrolizumab plus KIMMTRAK, if that's the best for the patients, we'll adapt.
Sean Laaman
analystSure. Moving on slightly, on ATOM in the adjuvant setting. You've detailed around 1,200 annual patients, and ATOM being the only active Phase 3 in adjuvant uveal melanoma. How do you think about the broader opportunity here, and can you share any detail on the enrollment progress?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes. Yes, definitely. So I think the adjuvant trial is really a must for us to do because these patients have nothing. So once they, in uveal melanoma, 50% of the patients, after they remove the primary tumor, they basically are at high risk, what we call a high risk of developing metastasis into the liver. But they don't really know, they have nothing to prevent that, so they go through basically, I call it wait and worry. That means control every 3 months, basically, if the metastasis is happening or not. So we know from our trial that, especially the KIMMTRAK trial in Phase 3, that when the tumor is very small, like the hazard ratio was 0.56 in our trial, but when we look at, and when we look at the small tumors around less than 3 centimeters, the hazard ratio drops to 0.36. So that's really what encouraged us to go into adjuvant where you're dealing with most probably seeding cells. So the population there, the high-risk population, would be around 1,200 patients in addition. So we talked about the cutaneous, if it works, that 4,000. So we'll be looking at above 6,000 patients in addition if the two trials are positive. So it's recruiting, well, it's recruiting, we're doing it with the EORTC, it's recruiting in Europe, and we opened sites also in the U.S.
Sean Laaman
analystSure, thank you. Okay, just going back to KIMMTRAK in uveal melanoma. I think you're 70% or in excess of penetration. And how do you think about the underlying growth rate from here?
Bahija Jallal
executiveGo ahead.
Travis Coy
executiveNo, happy to. Thanks, Sean. The thing we've been really proud of now that we're in the fifth year in the launch is the penetration we've been able to achieve across all major markets is 70% or higher. You know, that comes from being the established standard of care in those settings. And as to be expected with any mature product that's been on the market now, you do begin to see growth moderate. And we're starting to see some of that, and we'll expect that moving forward. That being said, we continue to expect growth. A few areas that we're focused on, 1 in the U.S. is continuing to increase that penetration into the community setting. And then outside the U.S., it's about two aspects, it's 1, we continue to increase market access with additional launches, but then also with the more relatively new markets that we've launched, we continue to see that duration of therapy increase beyond what we saw in the clinical setting. And that was a dynamic we saw in the U.S., and it's nice that we're seeing that outside the U.S. as well with those newer markets.
Sean Laaman
analystSure. And what's driving that duration?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYou know, it's a really remarkable drug because usually in the clinical trials, you get much higher duration of treatment than in the real world, right? The trials are more controlled and so on. Here we see absolutely the opposite, right? So the trial we are at 10 to 11 months, and here we are at 14-plus basically. And it came to two things, you know, 1 is the fact that usually in a trial, you stop at the radiographic progression, if you will. The clinicians don't stop if the patient is doing very well in the real world, and that's exactly what's happening. This is a new mechanism that's not, with the patient, the investigators are the ones who told us that patients, even with pseudo progression, I would call them, do very well with this drug and continue to do well. So they continue beyond progression. And the second thing that's really important is we brought the 5-year survival for this drug that also gives more evidence for the investigators.
Sean Laaman
analystSure, thank you. Last question on KIMMTRAK, but as it relates to the competitive dynamics, we have some data coming up on ESMO, from IDEAYA Biosciences, on darovasertib. How do you think about KIMMTRAK's first-line position in HLA-positive uveal melanoma being insulated versus potential of share threat over time?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, so I think the, you know, to talk about the data that's coming or the data that was, that were published actually or talked about in a conference, it's a good news for HLA-A2 negative patients, you know, they're not eligible for KIMMTRAK, and that's good news for them. Any other data, I can't really speculate until I see the data. We have not seen the data yet. It's coming in October, so we'll reserve that. What I can say, anything, you know, here is what any compound that needs to displace or wants to displace the standards of care, which is KIMMTRAK in first line, needs to do. One is basically you have to displace the standards of care. It is standards of care in every country where we went. In most of the countries where we went, it's standards of care. Very well penetrated, but also the most important thing for me is the 5-year OS. This is a disease that's counted in months. They're not, this is not something that takes years, it takes months once you're diagnosed with metastatic. And what we've shown in 5 years, if you allow me, two things that are really important. One is if you were treated with KIMMTRAK, you double the chance to be alive at 5 years. But most importantly, 44% of the patients who are alive at 5 years had only KIMMTRAK. It is really arguing the actual sequencing, that to be alive at 5 years, you have to have had first KIMMTRAK, you can't leave it to later. And the second thing is that you have to continue taking KIMMTRAK. So those are backed with data, with just what we say.
Sean Laaman
analystThank you, thank you. That's a great discussion on KIMMTRAK. So moving on to brenetafusp and the PRAME franchise. So just sort of measure your confidence on PRISM-MEL-301 and what, what, what's your confidence around it clearing the bar?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, so I think there are two things that are important for PRISM-MEL-301. So this is basically looking at first-line cutaneous melanoma in combination with nivolumab compared to nivolumab by itself or nivolumab-relatlimab. From a mechanism point of view, cutaneous melanoma has a high expression of GP100 PRAME, so I went into GP100, sorry, has a high expression of PRAME. And the other thing is that we have shown that PRAME is active as monotherapy, and that was very important for us. If we're going to go into any combination, we have to show that we have monotherapy, you know, monotherapy activity. So we show that we have monotherapy activity in cutaneous melanoma, we also showed that basically we have even higher than when we compared to nivolumab-relatlimab. And we have shown with our platform that if you move earlier in treatment, basically, if you move into first line, you have a much better T-cell fitness. So this, what the data that I talked about was a late line, so coming into first line, we believe that's going to work even better. And then combining with nivolumab, these are two mechanisms, first two active agents that should be at least an additive mechanism, aspect to the combination, and I believe will have also a synergistic effect because these are two complementary or two different mechanisms that can add to each other. So we have the trial is going well, knock on wood. And we hope to finish by end of '27 the recruitment in that trial.
Sean Laaman
analystWonderful. Thank you. On IMC-P115C, which is the half-life extended PRAME molecule, how do you think about less frequent dosing for adjuvant or earlier line patients?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, I think, look, always we went into the high half-life extension to test the convenience, you know, it's always important, the convenience for the patients, even if we did it differently in PRISM-MEL-301. So the nice thing is that the half-life extended molecule is exactly the same as the brenetafusp that's in the clinic, and what we're adding to it is just the FC to increase the half-life extended. So we have the possibility to really compare and contrast and use the data from brenetafusp for... the half-life extended. Yes, so I think two things that I'll be looking forward to. One is, you know, does what we predicted for the PK, what we modeled for the PK.
Sean Laaman
analystThank you. And I guess, what are you looking for in the early dose escalation data to decide whether that becomes a go-forward PRAME asset over brenetafusp in some settings?
Bahija Jallal
executivePreclinically, does it really translate into the clinic? That's an easy thing to do in the first dose escalation of the product. And then the second one is because we are testing it in cutaneous and in ovarian where we know brenetafusp is active, we can directly compare. And I think that's exactly what we're doing right now.
Sean Laaman
analystSure, thank you. And moving on to the autoimmune and infectious disease. The ImmTAAI, yep. Can you walk through why that this same platform that activates T cells against cancer can be flipped to suppress them and why that should be more precise than systemic immunosuppression?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, so I'm really excited about that. Like, maybe it shows. The fact is how the platform, and that's why I came to this organization, to Immunocore, because really the excitement about the platform. If you think the platform has two components, right? The first component is that HLA, TCR complex and peptide that binds that directly into, specifically into an organ. And then the second part is what brings basically what we need to do. Do we bring the T cells, do we activate the T cells to kill the tumor, or we use that to actually inhibit the T cells and switch off. So I'll just talk about the mechanism in HIV, for instance, is the same as in oncology, you want to kill the cells there. But in autoimmune, it's the opposite, which is exciting. So then you would ask me, what's the difference? We have systemic. Why, as you asked, why we have the systemic? The systemic works, without a doubt. When we think about steroids, they work very, very nicely. The problem is they work everywhere, even in organs where they're healthy organs, and that's why you see the side effects are happening in the muscle, in the joint, in, you know, people having diabetes and so on. That was really good in systemic was the biologics, right? But there you are actually, you have a selectivity of the target, but that selectivity, once you inhibit the target, like the TNFs, it's also in healthy tissues. So TNFs, they're known, you get also infection. So what we're trying to do is a new paradigm. Can we go specifically to the organ that is affected and only treat that organ that's affected? And that's basically in type 1 diabetes is the beta cells. And that's really why I'm so excited about that.
Sean Laaman
analystAwesome, thank you. And on the diabetes program, strategically what's the readout you're watching, and how quickly could C-peptide give you signal of whether you're preserving beta cell function?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, that's a really great question because exactly why we went to type 1 diabetes, because it allows us first to test the whole hypothesis of the T cells. The second is because we can go into patients directly, not healthy volunteers. And third is we can get in single ascending dose and multiple ascending dose, that means smaller trials, we can find out if this molecule works or not. So in the single ascending dose, we will answer 1 question, you know, does the product, basically the compound binds to the beta cells and only to the beta cells, we can test that. And the second, in the multiple ascending dose, we can actually address the efficacy question right there, and that's because we will be actually following the C-peptide, and we know that the C-peptide has been now accepted by the FDA as a good surrogate for activity in an accelerated approval, like for anti-CD3, so we can with not a huge, huge amount of money or time and everything, find out if this works or not.
Sean Laaman
analystWonderful, thank you. And still on autoimmune and thinking about your HIV program, thinking to a readout next year. But in 2027 obviously, what would it need to show the industry that a functional cure is within reach?
Bahija Jallal
executiveYes, it's really in steps. I think the bar there is much higher. We know that the bar for cure in HIV is much higher. We are dissecting, looking at the mechanism, looking at how, how, you know, things are working. So we have in multiple ascending dose, we presented some data showing that actually something is happening, that we can at least delay some of the rebound of the virus. We showed two weeks ago, weeks ago or something like that, the translational work and understanding the biology. So we didn't believe that we reached the dose that we can. So we are continuing to dose escalate. We did actually escalate to 1,200. Now is looking at, you know, can we continue to see dose response and then understand more. So there it's really trying to understand that mechanism and how we can tackle it with this molecule.
Sean Laaman
analystWonderful, thank you. And for Travis, as Head of Corporate Development, how important is BD for you today, or are you primarily focused on internal R&D?
Travis Coy
executiveThanks, Sean. You know, Bahija referenced the need to continue innovation. And so for us, business development is part of that, part of accomplishing that need to continue innovation. And so as we look for opportunities, and that's just as important as it is alongside internal R&D. So we look for opportunities to enhance the platform, look for opportunities that build upon our clinical capabilities and expertise. We look for opportunities to expand market access. All of those things are sort of right there alongside internal R&D while making sure we're cognizant of the fact that we don't want to jeopardize the execution of internal R&D. We don't want to distract from that, while complementing it with those capabilities and expertise that we've built. So it's part of our DNA.
Sean Laaman
analystSure. And I guess, can you walk us through your capital allocation framework? You're sitting on around $880 million, I think. Three Phase 3 trials running and when it comes to execution, how are you thinking about capital allocation and can you remind us of how you're thinking about the cash runway?
Travis Coy
executiveYes, happy to do so. So three key buckets for us with respect to capital allocation. One is making sure we maximize KIMMTRAK. That includes both the current uveal melanoma indication that we have, as well as the potential for upcoming cutaneous melanoma indication. The second is making sure we continue to invest and execute on the 3 Phase 3 studies. And then the third is, ties back to actually what Bahija and I have both highlighted is, making sure we're not complacent around the platform and continuing to bring the platform forward, and that includes early stage R&D as well. To your point, we are well capitalized with $880 million on our balance sheet as of the end of Q2. That really allows us with KIMMTRAK revenue being cognizant about our capital allocation and making sure we're disciplined with our SG&A, making sure we're data driven by the R&D, investments that we make, that allows us to fund the portfolio really for the foreseeable future.
Sean Laaman
analystThank you. And your platform now spans oncology, HIV, and autoimmune. How do we think about the balance between spend on the oncology side versus the infectious disease or autoimmune programs to focus capital? And how do you think about partnering as a corporate development lever versus doing it all in-house?
Travis Coy
executiveYes. Yes, as you break down, this is another way to break down the capital allocation question that you just asked. If you look at where we're spending today, our footprint is most established in oncology. It's where we have a development and commercial footprint. So as we think about the HIV and infectious disease programs, and Bahija was alluding to this a little bit, we're likely to pursue a partner to maximize the value of those programs, but we want to do so at the right time and in the right way. And I think because of the relative capital efficiency that is needed in order to be able to take those programs to the next inflection point, that's when we'll begin to look for opportunities to partner those programs.
Sean Laaman
analystWonderful. I have a final question, and that is, is there anything that I didn't ask that I should have, or is there a message you'd like to leave investors with, or both?
Bahija Jallal
executiveA tour of what we have. I think the, again, very, very much excited about KIMMTRAK and what's doing with the patients. And I think these stories are really what brings us to work every day. But I think KIMMTRAK is not stopping there. I think we have a lot of possibilities with KIMMTRAK. But the platform as a whole is not only in oncology, it's just the start, frankly, but also outside of oncology. We're extremely excited about that. But right now it's about execution. We finished the trial today. We still have 2 Phase 3s to go. So I think that's about that. And what you're going to hear from us always is execution, execution, and focus until we bring the second phase of growth of the company.
Sean Laaman
analystWonderful, might be time to call close to things, give everyone a couple of minutes back, but thank you, thank you so much. Thank you.
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