Highlighted Drug Makers From This Year's Cancer Conference
June 06 2016 - 12:02PM
Dow Jones News
A Wall Street Journal Roundup
The latest developments in cancer research are being discussed
this week at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical
Oncology in Chicago. The following companies are among those that
have reported key cancer news:
AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) said its drug dubbed "Rova-T," which the
company acquired via its recent $5.8 billion purchase of
Stemcentrx, significantly shrank tumors in about 18% of patients
with the difficult-to-treat lung cancer known as "small cell." The
drug also had a one-year survival rate of 32% among patients whose
tumors had a protein targeted by the drug. Analysts, though,
labeled the results underwhelming, with one observer calling the
benefits transient and not translating into long-term survival
benefits. Meanwhile, a separate study of patients who received a
combination of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s immunotherapies Yervoy
and Opdivo had a one-year survival rate of 43%. AbbVie shares fell
4.6 to $62.
Exelixis Inc. (EXEL) said its skin cancer drug cobimetinib
showed encouraging results for treating colon cancer when paired
with another drug in an early-stage trial. Based on the results,
partner Genentech launched a late-stage trial of the drugs. In
addition, the company also released new analysis of a trial of its
kidney cancer drug Cabometyx, which received U.S. Food and Drug
administration approval in April. The Cabometyx trial showed the
treatment increased survival indicators across different types of
the cancer and across patients who had tried other treatments
first. Following the news, Exelisis shares rose 7.7% to $7.10.
Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. (HALO) said results from a Phase 2
trial for its pancreatic cancer treatment, known as PEGPH20, showed
"similar" overall survival, 11.8 months, to the control arm, 10.9
months. The company said results may have been affected by patients
in the control arm having a less aggressive form of the disease as
well as a clinical hold on the drug from April to July 2014, during
which time the treatment was discontinued. Halozyme shares fell
2.8% to $9.37.
Juno Therapeutics Inc. (JUNO) said its chimeric antigen receptor
T cell treatment, known as CAR-T, showed 100% complete response
rates in an early-stage trial of adults with certain types of blood
cancers and a 93% remission rate in children and young adults. Kite
Pharma Inc. (KITE) also reported positive results of its CAR-T
treatment in an early stage trial. The treatments, known as
immunotherapies, use the body's own immune system to fight the
disease. Juno shares rose 9.4% to $48.02, while Kite added 12% to
$58.52.
ProNAi Therapeutics Inc. (DNAI) said it would discontinue
development of its lymphoma treatment following disappointing Phase
2 trial results. The company said that while "modest efficacy" was
observed, the trial results were not robust enough to justify
continued development of the drug. Shares of ProNAi fell 65% to
$2.25, which is down from its initial public offering price of $17
and its all-time high of $33.75.
Vascular Biogenics Ltd. (VBLT) said a combination of its
experimental immunotherapy and Genentech's Avastin, known as
VB-111, significantly increased the median overall survival of
patients with a common form of brain cancer. In a mid-stage study,
patients that got the combo therapy had a median survival of 59
weeks, compared with 32 weeks in pooled data from previous Avastin
studies. The overall survival rate for the combo
therapy--Vascular's lead cancer drug candidate--was 57% at one
year, compared with 24% in previous data. The Israeli drug
developer also said VB-111 demonstrated significant survival
benefits as a treatment for ovarian cancer in an early stage study.
Vascular shares recently rose 78% to $7.06.
--Compiled by Austen Hufford, Joshua Jamerson, Peter Loftus,
George Stahl, Anne Steele and Tess Stynes.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 06, 2016 12:47 ET (16:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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