Hope for New Brain Cancer Treatment (PPHM, PPHMD)

November 10, 2009 · Filed Under Cancer, R&D 

Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: PPHMD) has been in the news quite a bit of late, which is odd for a company its size.  Recently it announced its second broad U.S. patent for anti-viral applications of phospholipid-targeting antibodies, and it also recently announced that had regained its listing requirements for NASDAQ-listing.  But the real news, which is still something to be treated as a “developing and long-term issue,” is this morning’s report of a new study in clinical cancer research has shown therapeutic promise in the company’s Bavituximab with radiation in a lethal brain cancer model.

The company noted that treatment in combination with radiation doubled the survival time and produced long-term cures in the lethal brain cancer model.  If this continues to show the same results in trials down the road, this confirms PS-targeting antibodies as having a dual mechanism of action.

Effectively, this would both destroy tumor blood vessels and would “initiate a robust immune response to tumors.  It also demonstrates a therapeutic potential in brain cancer in addition to the company’s ongoing Phase II trials in advanced breast cancer and lung cancer.

The new study was designed to assess whether treatment with an antibody equivalent of bavituximab combined with radiotherapy can suppress tumor growth in an aggressive tumor line that behaves very much like glioblastoma when injected into the brains of test animals. The company said that results showed that the combination of a bavituximab equivalent and radiotherapy more than doubled the median survival time of test animals and 13% were rendered disease free.  The disease-free outcome was an unexpected outcome with this type of tumor and it noted that the combination treatment was significantly superior to either radiotherapy or treatment with the bavituximab equivalent alone.

Its other interim Phase II results have been encouraging, with objective tumor response rates that compare favorably to chemotherapy alone.  FULL DETAILS are here in the company’s release.

This is having no impact in Peregrine shares as the stock is actually down over 2% at $3.18 and the trading volume is very thin.  Part of the reason for the drop is that this would be deemed pre-clinical and therefore years before any likely approval if the results were to hold up.

JON C. OGG

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