What's in the Cards for Immune Design (IMDZ) in Q4 Earnings?

Immune Design Corp. IMDZ is scheduled to report fourth-quarter 2017 results on Mar 6.

Last quarter, the company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 17.46%. Immune Design topped earnings estimates in three of the trailing four quarters, with an average beat 13.43%.

Immune Design’s shares have lost 39.3% year to date, as against the industry’s upside of 0.1%.

 

Let’s see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Factors at Play

Being a development-stage biopharmaceutical company, Immune Design has not generated any product revenues yet. It earns revenues from collaboration and licensing agreements, and product sales.

Investors remain focused on the company’s progress based on its pipeline candidates. Immune Design is developing multiple candidates using two discovery platforms — ZVex and GLAAS — for the treatment of various types of cancers. The company’s key pipeline candidates are CMB305 for solid tumor and G100 for merkel cell carcinoma (“MCC”).

CMB305 has been designed under a prime-boost approach, involving the sequential dosing of two complementary agents — LV305 and G305.

Currently, this candidate is being evaluated in soft tissue sarcoma patients both as monotherapy (phase I) and in combination with Roche Holding’s RHHBY Tecentriq (phase II). The company plans to initiate a pivotal phase III trial studying CMB305 as monotherapy in synovial sarcoma patients in mid-2018. If the progression free survival endpoint is met, the company intends to file a Biologics License Application and seek approval for CMB305 for the treatment of synovial sarcoma.

Meanwhile, G100 is being evaluated in multiple clinical trials, including as a monotherapy with local radiation in a completed phase I study in patients with MCC and in an ongoing investigator-sponsored trial in patients with sarcoma.

It is also being developed as a monotherapy and combination therapy in patients with follicular non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, (“NHL”), in a randomized phase II study. In October 2017, G100 received Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of follicular NHL from the European Medicines Agency.

A potential approval of these pipeline candidates will be a boost for the company.

During the earnings call, we expect Immune Design to shed light on the progress of these ongoing trials.

What Our Model Indicates

Our proven model does not conclusively show an earnings beat for Immune Design this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both — a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) — to be able to beat estimates. However, that is not the case here as you will see below.

Zacks ESP: Immune Design has an Earnings ESP of 0.0%. This is because both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are pegged at a loss of 39 cents. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.

Zacks Rank: Immune Design has a Zacks Rank #3, which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, we need to have a positive ESP to be confident about an earnings beat.

Conversely, we caution against Sell-rated stocks (#4 or 5) going into the earnings announcement, especially when the company is seeing negative estimate revisions.

Immune Design Corp. Price and EPS Surprise

Immune Design Corp. Price and EPS Surprise | Immune Design Corp. Quote

 

Stocks to Consider

Here are healthcare companies that you may consider instead, as our model shows that they have the right combination of elements to deliver an earnings beat this quarter.

Gemphire Therapeutics GEMP is expected to release fourth-quarter 2017 results on Mar 21. The company has an Earnings ESP of +8.01% and a Zacks Rank #2.

Atara Biotherapeutics ATRA is expected to release fourth-quarter 2017 results on Mar 8. The company has an Earnings ESP of +7.42% and a Zacks Rank #3.

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