Woodford suffers Immunocore devaluation

Fund manager Woodford Investment Management’s predicament deteriorated further yesterday after it emerged that its portfolio company Immunocore, an immunotherapy developer with University of Oxford roots, had been devalued by roughly 50%, according to CityWire.
Founded in 2008, Immunocore is working on a pipeline of T-cell receptor-based drugs for cancer, infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases.
Immunocore’s lead program is a cancer drug called tebentapfusp indicated for metastatic uveal melanoma, an advanced form of eye cancer characterised by tumours arising from pigment cells in the uvea.
The company’s history can be traced back to University of Oxford’s founding of Avidex in 1999, before that company was acquired in 2006 by MediGene, which in turn spun out Immunocore in 2008.
Woodford owns interest in Immunocore through two of its funds – a stake owned by the Patient Capital investment trust amounting to 4.8% of the fund’s overall portfolio, and a stake held by the suspended flagship Equity Income fund amounting to 1% of the portfolio as of April 2019.
CityWire reported the valuation of the two stakes had fallen, respectively, to £21.8m ($27.8m) from $55.4m at the end of April 2019, and to $29.2m from $57m at the end of December 2018.
The report claimed Immunocore’s write-down was responsible for a 3.2% loss in the net asset value of Woodford Patient Capital on May 8.
Woodford and fellow investment firm Malin co-led a $320m transaction for Immunocore in 2015 in what was Europe’s largest ever life sciences funding round at the time, with participation from drug firm Eli Lilly, RTW Investments and unnamed new and existing investors. According to CityWire, the round took place at a close to $1bn valuation.
Immunocore went on to receive $40m from charitable foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017. The company has collaboration deals in place with Eli Lilly as well as Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline and MedImmune.