Jounce Therapeutics - Will It EMERGE Stronger?

(RTTNews) - Shares of Jounce Therapeutics Inc. (JNCE), which closed Monday's trading at $6.55, are down nearly 35% from their 52-week high of $10 recorded on Dec.26, 2019.

Jounce Therapeutics is a clinical-stage company developing novel cancer immunotherapies. The lead drug candidate in the pipeline is Vopratelimab.

A phase II study of Vopratelimab in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb's Yervoy (ipilimumab) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer or urothelial cancer who have progressed on or after PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor therapies, dubbed EMERGE, is underway.

Preliminary efficacy and related biomarker data from the EMERGE trial are expected in the second half of this year.

Last April, the Company reported promising data from a phase I/II dose-escalation and expansion clinical study of Vopratelimab alone and in combination with Opdivo, Yervoy, or Keytruda in adult subjects with advanced and/or refractory solid tumors, dubbed ICONIC.

The second drug candidate in the pipeline is JTX-4014. A phase II trial of JTX-4014 in combination with Vopratelimab in biomarker-selected patients with non-small cell lung cancer, dubbed SELECT, is expected to be initiated in mid-2020. If all goes well as planned, interim clinical data from the SELECT trial is expected in 2021.

The next investigational therapy that merits mention is JTX-1811, designed to deplete immunosuppressive T regulatory cells as in the case of NSCLC, breast cancer, colon cancer, head & neck cancer, and ovarian cancer. The Company expects to file an IND and initiate a phase I clinical trial for JTX-1811 in the first half of next year.

Under a restructured deal signed last July, Celgene licensed the worldwide rights to macrophage drug candidate JTX8064 from Jounce. JTX8064 is in IND-enabling studies and all development and commercialization activities will be taken up by Celgene. Jounce received a $50.0 million non-refundable license fee and is eligible to receive from Celgene up to $480 million in development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments, as well as royalties on potential worldwide sales.

As of September 30, 2019, the Company had cash and investments of $185.1 million. The Company expects 2020 gross cash burn to be in the range of $80 million to $95 million. The cash burn in 2019 was about $79 million.

Jounce went public on the NASDAQ Global Select Market on January 27, 2017, offering its shares at a price of $16 each.

JNCE has traded in a range of $2.79 to $10.00 in the last 1 year. The stock closed Monday's trading at $6.55, up 4.13%.