IN8BIO, INC. annual report, FY2021

IN8BIO, Inc. — FY2021 Form 10-K

Reporting period: Fiscal year ended December 31, 2021; filed March 17, 2022. The company is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical developer of gamma-delta T-cell cancer therapies. It reported no product revenue and had no approved products.

Financial results and liquidity

MetricFY2021FY2020
Revenue$0$0
Research and development expense$7.347 million$5.378 million
General and administrative expense$7.306 million$3.179 million
Total operating expenses / net loss$14.653 million$8.557 million
Net loss per common share, basic and diluted$1.47$3.02
Net cash used in operating activities$13.509 million$7.133 million
  • Expenses rose by $6.096 million year over year. R&D growth reflected clinical-trial, manufacturing and personnel costs; G&A growth reflected headcount, IPO-related legal costs, insurance and public-company expenses.
  • At December 31, 2021, cash was $37.021 million, current assets were $38.980 million, current liabilities were $2.256 million, total liabilities were $4.040 million and stockholders’ equity was $38.183 million. The company reported no cash-flow or operating margin because it had no revenue.
  • Net cash used in investing activities was $0.309 million; financing activities provided $32.955 million. The company reported $37.272 million of cash and restricted cash at year-end, including $0.251 million of restricted cash.
  • The company said year-end cash would fund projected operating expenses and capital needs for at least 12 months from issuance of the financial statements. It expects to need substantial additional financing; no committed external funding source was disclosed.
  • The August 2021 IPO raised $32.3 million net. The company said it had not used IPO proceeds as of the filing. The $0.2 million PPP loan was repaid in August 2021. No other long-term debt was reported.
  • Contractual lease payments totaled $2.948 million at year-end. Separately, a lab build-out agreement had expected costs of up to $4.0 million, of which $0.2 million had been incurred.

Business, progress and changes

  • INB-200: Autologous, genetically modified gamma-delta T cells for newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM), in a Phase 1 dose-escalation trial. The company planned to report initial topline results in the second half of 2022.
  • INB-100: Donor-derived, allogeneic gamma-delta T cells for high-risk leukemia patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, in a Phase 1 trial. Initial first-cohort results were expected in 2022 and topline results across cohorts in 2023.
  • Pipeline: INB-400 was planned as a Phase 1b/2 GBM program, with an initial autologous IND targeted for the second half of 2022 and a supplemental allogeneic IND thereafter. INB-300, a CAR-enabled program, remained preclinical. The company expected to file several pipeline INDs through 2023.
  • Preliminary INB-200 disclosures reported no treatment-related dose-limiting toxicities in the described treated patients. One participant died after a second dose following an acute cardiopulmonary event; the company, investigator, safety board and FDA considered the death unlikely to be related to INB-200. The protocol was modified to mitigate similar cardiovascular risks, and the trial continued.
  • For INB-100, the company reported three treated patients in morphologic complete remission, with no dose-limiting toxicities or treatment-related grade 3-or-higher adverse events reported to date. Grade 1–2 graft-versus-host disease occurred in some patients and was responsive to steroids or resolved.
  • The filing contains inconsistent INB-200 enrollment descriptions: it reports 12 patients enrolled and six treated as of year-end, and elsewhere says six patients were enrolled in cohort 2 with two dosed. These figures should be reconciled against trial records and subsequent disclosures.

Outlook, risks and unusual items

  • Management expects expenses and operating losses to increase as clinical development, manufacturing capacity, staffing and public-company costs expand. Profitability depends on successful development, regulatory approval and commercialization, none of which is assured.
  • Key risks include clinical failure or safety findings, small early-stage trial populations, patient enrollment and retention, manufacturing variability or failure, dependence on third-party manufacturers and a single supplier for certain critical equipment and lentiviral vectors, regulatory uncertainty, intellectual-property and licensing risks, competition, and the need for additional capital.
  • COVID-19 had affected or could affect trial enrollment, clinical-site capacity, supply chains, costs and access to capital. Management also cited inflation, market volatility and geopolitical tensions, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
  • The company relied on third parties for manufacturing and had no commercial-scale manufacturing capability or commercial supply agreements. It reported a lentiviral-vector supply sufficient for approximately 29 patients and noted industry manufacturing backlogs.
  • No material legal proceedings were reported. The independent auditor issued an unqualified opinion on the financial statements. Management said disclosure controls were effective at a reasonable-assurance level; the filing included no auditor attestation on internal control over financial reporting under the newly public company transition provisions.

Investor verification priorities

  1. Reconcile INB-200 patient enrollment, cohort and dosing counts, and review updated safety and efficacy data, including follow-up on the reported death and protocol changes.
  2. Confirm current cash, cash burn, financing runway and subsequent financing or spending plans; the runway statement is based on year-end cash and management projections.
  3. Track whether planned IND submissions and trial timelines were achieved, and whether later data support the company’s preliminary claims.
  4. Assess manufacturing success rates, vector availability, third-party capacity, and the cost and timing of the Birmingham lab build-out.
  5. Review dilution exposure, including equity compensation and potential future capital raises, as well as license milestones, royalties and maintenance obligations.