Apollomics: A Taiwanese-Origin Company With Late Stage Pipeline

Apollomics (NASDAQ:APLM) is a small company with a big pipeline that just launched recently. It came to the market through a Taiwan-based SPAC called Maxpro Capital Acquisition Corp. It licensed assets from various entities, including Uproleselan from GlycoMimetics. Here’s a look at its pipeline:

Lead candidate Vebreltinib (APL-101) is a c-Met targeting small molecule TKI in phase 2 monotherapy trials for NSCLC, GBM and other solid tumors.

c-Met, also known as MET (Mesenchymal-Epithelial Transition factor), is a protein that plays a crucial role in various cellular processes, particularly in cell growth, survival, migration, and differentiation. It is a receptor tyrosine kinase, which means it is a type of cell surface receptor that activates intracellular signaling pathways when it binds to its specific ligand.

The ligand for c-Met is hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), also known as scatter factor (SF). When HGF binds to c-Met, it triggers a cascade of intracellular events that promote cell proliferation, survival, and motility. These activities are important during normal development, tissue repair, and wound healing. However, dysregulation of c-Met signaling has been implicated in various diseases, particularly cancer.

Aberrant activation of c-Met signaling can lead to uncontrolled cell growth, invasion, and metastasis in cancer cells. This has made c-Met an important target for cancer therapy, and there have been efforts to develop drugs that specifically inhibit c-Met activity. Inhibiting c-Met can potentially slow down the progression of certain cancers by blocking the signals that promote tumor growth and spread.

In preclinical studies, APL-101 has demonstrated inhibitory effect in a number of xenograft models of human primary c-Met amplified gastric, hepatic, pancreatic and lung cancer. A phase 1 trial done in China demonstrated not only safety and tolerability, but also showed preliminary anti-tumor activity. This was seen in exon 14 skipping mutations and/or MET amplification, two of the common ways in which dysregulation of c-MET signaling may occur.

The company, along with its partner Caris MPI, Inc., developed an RNA-based companion diagnostic system using whole transcriptome sequencing for patient selection in clinical trials of APL-101.

An international multicenter, open-label study evaluating the safety, pharmacokinetics, and preliminary efficacy of APL-101 is currently ongoing in the following target Indications:

• Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with MET exon 14 skipping alterations

• Glioblastoma multiforme with MET amplifications and fusions

• Solid tumors with MET amplifications and fusions

Their second asset is APL-106, or Uproleselan, a specific E-Selectin antagonist. E-Selectin, also known as endothelial-selectin or CD62E, is a cell adhesion molecule that plays a crucial role in the process of inflammation and immune response. It is a type of selectin, which is a family of adhesion molecules involved in mediating interactions between white blood cells (leukocytes) and the inner lining of blood vessels, known as endothelial cells.

E-Selectin is expressed on the surface of endothelial cells, which line the blood vessels. It is primarily responsible for capturing and tethering leukocytes, particularly neutrophils and some other types of white blood cells, to the endothelium at sites of inflammation. This interaction is a crucial step in the immune response to infections and tissue injury.

In certain types of cancer metastasis, where leukocyte adhesion and migration mediated by e-selectin play a significant role, targeting e-selectin is being explored as a therapeutic target.

As the company states:

In many hematologic cancers, E-Selectin plays a critical role in binding cancer cells within vascular niches in the bone marrow, which prevents the cells from entering the circulation where they can be more readily killed by chemotherapy. As supported by studies in animal models, we consider that APL-106 has the potential to improve chemotherapy response rates, duration of remission and, ultimately, survival in patients with hematologic cancers such as AML.

Uproleselan has been run through a number of trials by GlycoMimetics, and APLM is currently running it through a phase 3 trial in Chinese patients in r/r AML. GlycoMimetics did a similar study in the US. See the data on TickerBay.com:

GlycoMimetics published data from these trials at ASH last year, which showed that “the combination of Cladribine + LDAC with Uproleselan was overall well tolerated with few treatment-related AEs. The combination produced an ORR of 62% in a high-risk, refractory population whose prognosis is very dismal.” In r/r AML and newly diagnosed AML, median overall survival was 8.8 months and 12.6 months respectively.

Financials

APLM has a market cap of $422mn and a cash balance of $56mn and a debt of $516mn according to Seeking Alpha. However, the company has not released any earnings this year, so it is not possible to get updated data on these figures or on expenses.

The retail public holds nearly 43% of the company, while PE/VC firms and pvt corps hold 20% each. Key holders are George Kaiser Family Foundation and OrbiMed.

Risks

As with any China/Taiwan origin companies, there’s always the risk of data bridging across populations. Being a relatively new company, there’s also a dearth of data. Moreover, they have not released earnings recently, so there is no clarity on financials.

Bottomline

Nothing stands out here except the Taiwan angle. We don’t see a lot of Taiwanese companies trading in the USA. We will continue to cover APLM as and when there’s data, but have no investing interest.

About the TPT service

Thanks for reading. At the Total Pharma Tracker, we offer the following:-

Our Android app and website features a set of tools for DIY investors, including a work-in-progress software where you can enter any ticker and get extensive curated research material. 

For investors requiring hands-on support, our in-house experts go through our tools and find the best investible stocks, complete with buy/sell strategies and alerts.

Sign up now for our free trial, request access to our tools, and find out, at no cost to you, what we can do for you.