Here's What The Latest Latin America Deal Means For Immune Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:IMNP)

Immune Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:IMNP) is running into the end of the week on some fresh news related to its lead oncology asset. The company closed out around $2.80 last Friday and logged intraday highs of $3.26 mid-session on Thursday before settling to close out at $3.22. That's an 8% run during the session and a 15% run for the week so far.Here's a look at what's driving the recent action and what we expect going forward from the company.First up, for those new to this one, Immune is a development stage biotech with a couple of primary targets in its current pipeline: a drug called bertilimumab, which is currently under investigation as a potential therapy for moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis as well as for bullous pemphigoid, an orphan auto-immune dermatological condition, and Ceplene, which is an oncology drug that’s under investigation as an acute myeloid leukemia (AML) drug. The latter is actually already approved in Europe and it's in this approval that the latest action is rooted.The drug is an oncology drug designed to be administered in combination with low-dose IL-2 therapy. The latter is a T-cell-derived cytokine responsible for activating multiple functions of anti-leukemic T and NK cells. The ability of T and K cells to recognize and eliminate leukemic cells determines the likelihood of maintaining CR in AML. In this population, however, these cells are often dysfunctional, which limits the potential clinical benefit brought about by the IL-2 therapy.Ceplene is designed to counter this AML-induced dysfunction and, in parallel, inhibit the apoptosis (another word for cell death) of T and NK cells. It's in this countering that the justification for its combination with IL-2 therapy is rooted.The company is currently trying to get it approved in the US based on a pretty extensive collection of legacy data, but that program is secondary in terms of near-term catalysts right now. The primary focus is on leveraging the initial European approval to expand the topline potential of the drug.We think it's a pretty smart strategy.There is quite a large number of regions globally that accept a European marketing authorization as the basis for a registration application domestically. On this list is a range of South American countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. These are big markets that could seriously expand revenue potential if the drug is approved in them as a combo with IL-2 (in AML, primarily).If the company can expand into these regions without having to conduct clinical trials to support the expansion, it's a substantial top line boost with very little associated outlay.The most recent announcement, then, builds on an announcement we initially saw back in April, as part of which Immune announced a potential licensing agreement between Cytovia (which is the subsidiary of Immune that's responsible for the company's oncology operations) and a South American biotech company called Pint Therapeutics.The latest announcement details the reaching of what the company refers to as 'Substantial Agreement', as part of which Pint will be responsible for the registration and commercialization of the drug in the above noted Latin American countries, to include registration, pricing and reimbursement, and sales and marketing activities.Cytovia will pick up sales and milestone based royalties and – and this is one of the real drivers behind the run – a $4 million injection of upfront capital at terms similar to other investors in the same financing round. This is relatively non-dilutive capital that should serve to bolster the balance sheet near term and remove any immediate dilution risk that might have otherwise been necessitated by a capital raise.So what's next?We're looking for certain catalyst related to the advancing of this deal towards completion as compounding the upside momentum seen at the end of this week. If the company can get the deal closed (and we see no reason why this won't happen near term) then we're looking to the Latin American application approval as indicative of near-term upside revaluation.We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on IMNP, sign up below!Catch up on our previous coverage of this one here. Image courtesy of NIAID via FlickrDisclosure: We have no position in IMNP and have not been compensated for this article.