Marker Therapeutics initiated with a Buy at Ladenburg on post-CAR-T opportunity

As previously reported, Ladenburg initiated coverage of Marker Therapeutics with a Buy rating and $11 price target. The post-CAR-T market opportunity for drug developers is “an open playing field” with the growing use of autologous CAR-T options in earlier lines of therapies, especially in diffused large B-cell lymphoma, or DLBCL, the analyst tells investors. Two CAR-T treatments, Yescarta and Breyanzi, that were recently approved by the FDA for second-line relapsed/refractory DLBCL, and promoted by the NCCN guidelines to Category 1 recommendation, still leave a significant portion of CAR-T treated patients progressing with their disease. Marker’s lead drug candidate, neldaleucel, is an upgraded version of previous multi-TAA-specific T cells and is specifically designed to target post-CAR-T patients, noted the analyst, who calls early data from the Phase 1 trial “impressive.”