Developments in the War on Lung Cancer (OSIP, ONTY, LLY)

December 13, 2009 · Filed Under Cancer, fda 

We have seen some developments over the last week on the companies that aim to fight lung cancer.  OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) has an FDA review event coming up this week for Tarceva.  We also wanted to review what occurred this week in Oncothyreon Inc. (NASDAQ: ONTY) and Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY), as well as noting some crazy activity in a penny stock.

OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: OSIP) may have been forgotten about during the holiday rush.  The company already had its analyst meeting on December 3, but we have this one marked with a December 16 FDA advisory committee meeting for Tarceva as a first-line maintenance therapy treatment against non-small cell lung cancer.  The company said that Tarceva is the only oral, non-chemotherapy agent shown to provide a statistically significant improvement in both progression-free survival and overall survival in the NSCLC maintenance setting.  At $34.75, its 52-week trading range is $27.01 to $43.00.  If we use the 4 closest strike prices on put and calls combined, there is only just over 5,000 contracts in the open interest, so it seems that binary event traders in biotech are not giving this much of a grade one way or the other.

Oncothyreon Inc. (NASDAQ: ONTY) rose sharply on Thursday, yet gave back some gains on Friday.  The company last week said Merck KGaA has launched a Phase III trial of its Stimuvax vaccine in Asian patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer and it is developing the cancer vaccine under a license with Oncothyreon.  The companies are already trying the drug in several other studies for other indications.  Stimuvax is designed to stimulate the body’s immune system to identify and target cancer cells that express MUC1, an antigen commonly expressed in NSCLC as well as in other common cancer types such as breast cancer, multiple myeloma, and colorectal, prostate and ovarian cancers.

Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY) gave analysts its pipeline update and financial guidance for 2010 this last week.  In its presentation, one of the many drugs under study was Necitumumab (IMC- 11F8).  The company noted that it has 2wo Phase III studies of necitumumab which have been initiated in non-small cell lung cancer.  The first of these commenced dosing in November 2009, while the second study is expected to commence before the end of 2009. A pivotal trial in colorectal cancer will follow.  Unfortunately for Lilly, if you did not count a whole $0.05 gain in the stock on December 9 this would have been a sever day losing streak.

I apologize for covering a pink sheet stock ahead of time.  A company called HARD TO TREAT DISEASES (Pink Sheets: HTDS) had to comment on recent trading activity: HTDS management would like the public to know that the only changes in the company’s fundamentals have been positive. As our shareholders will remember, we recently closed important new sales, added new marketing and technical advisors and had world-class research advances.  While it is only a fraction of a penny, it is hard to not notice 85 million shares… “We continue with our daily business activities, the research into MS, Lung cancer with our www.mindupbioresearch.com project to name a few.”…  We are offering you a link here to the company’s announcement, because it is obvious something is afoot here after noting many issues.

Jon C. Ogg
December 13, 2009

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