Jobs Affected as ImmunoGen Winds Down Ops at Massachusetts Facility
ImmunoGen, based in Waltham, Massachusetts, gave a pipeline progress report and 2017 operating results last week. In the middle of it was a report on changes to its operating model that has the company turning to external manufacturing and quality testing. As a result, it is ramping-down its manufacturing and quality activities at its facility in Norwood, Massachusetts by the end of the year, and a full exit by early 2019.
The closure will result in the loss of about 20 jobs. It is expected to save the company $20 million over five years.
“We’ve made significant progress with the business in 2017, with four consecutive quarters of strong execution across the Company,” said Mark Enyedy, ImmunoGen’s president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “Operationally, we advanced our monotherapy registration study and published compelling combination data with mirvetuximab, expanding our clinical pipeline, and established a high-value partnership with Jazz Pharmaceuticals supporting our earlier-stage programs. Financially, we added over $235 million in cash and eliminated roughly $100 million in debt on the balance sheet through business development and financial transactions.”
As part of its pipeline update, ImmunoGen noted that it had activated more than 100 test sites in North America and Europe for its ongoing Phase III FORWARD I clinical trial of mirvetuximab soravtansine for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Its Phase Ib/II FORWARD II trial in North American and Europe for mirvetuximab soravtansine combination regimens with Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and Avastin (bevacizumab) for platinum-resistance diseases, as well as a new cohort for a triplet combination of mirvetuximab plus carboplatin and Avastin, were continuing.
The company also reported new safety data and preliminary anti-leukemia activity in the Phase I clinical trial of IMGN779 in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). ImmunoGen also started dosing patients in its Phase I trial of IMGN632 in hematological malignancies, including AML and blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN). In addition, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, using ImmunoGen’s IGN platform, recently filed an investigational new drug (IND) application for TAK-164.
Looking towards 2018, the company plans to conduct interim analysis from FORWARD I in the first quarter, and report updated dose-escalation findings from the FORWARD II mirvetuximab plus Keytruda combo cohort at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology annual meeting in March. It also plans to present technology updates at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting in April, as well as provide data on other ongoing studies throughout the year.
For the year, the company reported total revenues of $115.447 million, up from $48.628 million the previous year. Total operating expenses were $174.429 million, down from the previous year’s figure of $184.271 million. As a result, this year’s operating loss from operations was $58.982 million, much less than 2016’s $135.643 million. The company finished the year with $294.676 million in cash, cash equivalents and other assets.
In its conference call, the company’s chief financial officer, Dave Johnson, said that it expects to wrap 2018 with somewhere between $115 million and $120 million in cash and cash equivalents. There is enough revenue to carry the company through the first quarter of 2019.