Mostly small biotech stocks are where the big action would be. Figuring out which will breakthrough is always tough to say. Best to try to find one with multiple developments in the pipeline and hope a few can eventually get through all 3 FDA phases.
These stocks are about as fluid and volatile as it gets though. Anyones guess which treatments actually make it to market.
Then obviously the blue chip drugmakers but given how many various forms of cancer there are, some breakthroughs might not really move their bottom lines a whole lot.
Just read an article...Novartis is a huge pharma company that is in the best position so far..a couple of small biotech's but the RISK is huge as the stock prices have already hit the clouds...if the small biotech product is a bust, you lose everything. I'll look for the article.
Found it
But it’s looked that way before, when blood cancers like childhood acute leukemia and Hodkin’s lymphoma were found to be frequently curable by chemotherapy in the 1970s or when Gleevec was found to make chronic myelogenous leukemia vanish in most patients a decade ago. This isn’t the first time in medical history when it seemed “we just might be on the verge of curing cancer.”
Failure is more common than not when it comes to cancer drugs. Sally Church, a well-regarded drug industry consultant (subscribe to her work here), says that she has a spreadsheet of more than 200 failures. Among them, iniparib, a seemingly positive breast cancer drug from Sanofi that turned out not to work, Metmab, a Roche lung cancer drug that seemed promising in an early stage study but failed patients in larger studies, and MAGE, an immune-system-boosting treatment from GlaxoSmithKline . Whenever you hear a stunning story of a new treatment saving a single patient, you should remember that sometimes surprising improvement happens and that we need better proof.
Which doesn’t mean that the treatments Shane Smith gushes over will fail. Take, for instance, the Mayo Clinic effort to turn a measles virus into a treatment for multiple myeloma. “”It’s early but very promising,” says Church. It could be a breakthrough, or a one-patient flop, we just don’t know – and Smith does a good job explaining this.
Where it’s impossible not to get caught up is with the story of Emily Whitehead , who was saved by a treatment that used a modified HIV virus to genetically modify her white blood cells so they attack another type of immune cell, the B cell, that had, in her case, become cancerous. These treatments have resulted in cancer vanishing in as much as 80% of patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). As researchers note to Smith, this is one of the most dramatic results anybody has seen for anything.
Novartis hopes to have a treatment based on this technology on the market in 2016, and startups Juno Therapeutics and Kite Therapeutics are hoping to have similar treatments approved around the same time. That has made the smaller companies some of the hottest biotech stocks out there (investors beware – they could be overvalued even if the technology is great.)
At the beginning of the special Smith mentions watching his mother fight metastatic breast cancer, and watching his mother-in-law die from it. But right now we don’t know how to use the white-blood-cell altering technology against solid tumors like breast cancer, instead of blood cancers like ALL. That’s a big leap that scientists will have to make. It would have been good if somewhere in the 40-minute special Smith could have talked to an expert who was not working on these treatments who could give a more objective perspective.
Still, the special is well worth watching, both for Smith’s empathic interviews with patients and for a look at some of the technology that really could be a beachhead in the war against a disease that, as Smith notes, will affect all of us.
Found it
But it’s looked that way before, when blood cancers like childhood acute leukemia and Hodkin’s lymphoma were found to be frequently curable by chemotherapy in the 1970s or when Gleevec was found to make chronic myelogenous leukemia vanish in most patients a decade ago. This isn’t the first time in medical history when it seemed “we just might be on the verge of curing cancer.”
Failure is more common than not when it comes to cancer drugs. Sally Church, a well-regarded drug industry consultant (subscribe to her work here), says that she has a spreadsheet of more than 200 failures. Among them, iniparib, a seemingly positive breast cancer drug from Sanofi that turned out not to work, Metmab, a Roche lung cancer drug that seemed promising in an early stage study but failed patients in larger studies, and MAGE, an immune-system-boosting treatment from GlaxoSmithKline . Whenever you hear a stunning story of a new treatment saving a single patient, you should remember that sometimes surprising improvement happens and that we need better proof.
Which doesn’t mean that the treatments Shane Smith gushes over will fail. Take, for instance, the Mayo Clinic effort to turn a measles virus into a treatment for multiple myeloma. “”It’s early but very promising,” says Church. It could be a breakthrough, or a one-patient flop, we just don’t know – and Smith does a good job explaining this.
Where it’s impossible not to get caught up is with the story of Emily Whitehead , who was saved by a treatment that used a modified HIV virus to genetically modify her white blood cells so they attack another type of immune cell, the B cell, that had, in her case, become cancerous. These treatments have resulted in cancer vanishing in as much as 80% of patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). As researchers note to Smith, this is one of the most dramatic results anybody has seen for anything.
Novartis hopes to have a treatment based on this technology on the market in 2016, and startups Juno Therapeutics and Kite Therapeutics are hoping to have similar treatments approved around the same time. That has made the smaller companies some of the hottest biotech stocks out there (investors beware – they could be overvalued even if the technology is great.)
At the beginning of the special Smith mentions watching his mother fight metastatic breast cancer, and watching his mother-in-law die from it. But right now we don’t know how to use the white-blood-cell altering technology against solid tumors like breast cancer, instead of blood cancers like ALL. That’s a big leap that scientists will have to make. It would have been good if somewhere in the 40-minute special Smith could have talked to an expert who was not working on these treatments who could give a more objective perspective.
Still, the special is well worth watching, both for Smith’s empathic interviews with patients and for a look at some of the technology that really could be a beachhead in the war against a disease that, as Smith notes, will affect all of us.
Like Gas is saying, small bio-tech stocks really are boom or bust. You can have tons of momentum as you get through each phase but eventually you need some of your pipeline to come to market or you go bust.
Check this one out from the middle of last year. A breast-cancer stock wentup 300% in one day after it met its goal in Phase 3.
This is not a misprint: Puma Biotechnology Inc. (NYSE: PBYI) stock surged nearly 300%, or $176.63, to an all-time high of $234.99 intraday Wednesday.
Sending shares of Puma soaring was the company's announcement late Tuesday that its investigational breast-cancer treatment met its main goal in a late-stage phase 3 trial.
Some 4.41 million shares changed hands within the first hour of trading, compared to the stock's average daily volume of 411,453 shares.
With 1,699,005 shares sold short (betting the stock would decline), a chunk of today's volume no doubt came from short sellers racing to cover positions.
PBYI's stratospheric stock rise turned the development stage biopharmaceutical firm, with $1.78 billion market cap, into a $7 billion company overnight. Founded in 2010 and based in Los Angeles, Puma doesn't have a single drug yet on the market.
The results from Puma's investigational treatment were met with such an overwhelmingly optimistic response because they address HER2-positive breast cancers.
HER2-positive breast cancer is characterized by aggressive growth and a poor prognosis. It is also less responsive to hormone treatment than other cancers are.
In Puma's study, patients with HER2-positive breast cancer were either given the treatment, called neratinib, or a placebo for one year after surgery and treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin). The 2,821 patients in 41 countries were then followed for two years.
Patients treated with neratinib showed a 33% improvement in disease-free survival over a placebo. Disease-free survival refers to the interim a patient remains alive and free of signs of the illness.
Based on the significantly positive outcomes, Puma will apply for U.S. regulatory approval in the first half of next year.
Neratinib is also being researched as a treatment for patients with non-small cell lung cancer and other solid tumors that have a HER2 mutation.
Check this one out from the middle of last year. A breast-cancer stock wentup 300% in one day after it met its goal in Phase 3.
This is not a misprint: Puma Biotechnology Inc. (NYSE: PBYI) stock surged nearly 300%, or $176.63, to an all-time high of $234.99 intraday Wednesday.
Sending shares of Puma soaring was the company's announcement late Tuesday that its investigational breast-cancer treatment met its main goal in a late-stage phase 3 trial.
Some 4.41 million shares changed hands within the first hour of trading, compared to the stock's average daily volume of 411,453 shares.
With 1,699,005 shares sold short (betting the stock would decline), a chunk of today's volume no doubt came from short sellers racing to cover positions.
PBYI's stratospheric stock rise turned the development stage biopharmaceutical firm, with $1.78 billion market cap, into a $7 billion company overnight. Founded in 2010 and based in Los Angeles, Puma doesn't have a single drug yet on the market.
The results from Puma's investigational treatment were met with such an overwhelmingly optimistic response because they address HER2-positive breast cancers.
HER2-positive breast cancer is characterized by aggressive growth and a poor prognosis. It is also less responsive to hormone treatment than other cancers are.
In Puma's study, patients with HER2-positive breast cancer were either given the treatment, called neratinib, or a placebo for one year after surgery and treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin). The 2,821 patients in 41 countries were then followed for two years.
Patients treated with neratinib showed a 33% improvement in disease-free survival over a placebo. Disease-free survival refers to the interim a patient remains alive and free of signs of the illness.
Based on the significantly positive outcomes, Puma will apply for U.S. regulatory approval in the first half of next year.
Neratinib is also being researched as a treatment for patients with non-small cell lung cancer and other solid tumors that have a HER2 mutation.
Buy and hold Celgene. It's a Fantastic innovator in this sphere. I had a buddy who recommended it to me in the early 90's at $4, but I stupidly didn't listen. face)(*^% He retired VERY early. It's still a great stock, and if it's good enough for all these Mutual Funds, it should be good enough for anyone. https://www.holdingschannel.com/funds/holding-celgene/
Yeah Celgene a good pick on the large cap end. This was on the Motley Fool today, one of their analysts
Todd Campbell
There are a lot of great stocks out there, and picking just one is tough, but in my opinion the one best stock to own today is Celgene (CELG ) .
Celgene markets a slate of top-selling cancer drugs, including the multiple myeloma drugs Revlimid and Pomalyst and the pancreatic cancer drug Abraxane. The company also launched its first autoimmune drug, Otezla, last year. Overall, Celgene's revenue grew 21% to $7.7 billion last year, but what makes me really excited about the company is its long-term growth forecast.
In January, Celgene issued guidance that calls for sales to climb to at least $20 billion by 2020. That means the company thinks its sales could jump 161% in the next five years! That alone could be the reason to own Celgene, but I also like that Celgene is already very profitable. The company expects that its adjusted operating margin will grow by 1.4% to 52% this year and that its adjusted EPS will climb from $3.71 in 2014 to between $4.60 and $4.75 this year. Toss in a rock-solid balance sheet that includes $7.5 billion in cash and marketable securities, and you can see why I'm such a fan of this biotech giant.
Funny thing about this topic.....
Rode with a guy yesterday ad he works for a company that's close to developing a prostate cancer drug. So like before when I got a stock tip I bought lol. Company is Exelixis (Stock name EXEL )
Sitting at $3.11 today, so not much to risk at such a low price. Wish me luck!!
Rode with a guy yesterday ad he works for a company that's close to developing a prostate cancer drug. So like before when I got a stock tip I bought lol. Company is Exelixis (Stock name EXEL )
Sitting at $3.11 today, so not much to risk at such a low price. Wish me luck!!
It's an interesting concept, I will remain skeptical as well. Eventually they probably will cure cancer and many other diseases such as Dementia and Alzheimers. People would be living forever but they would have to come up with ways to preserve the mind and body. People become frail with decreased muscle tone and bone density, they will probably come up with something where people live well into their 100s.
INFO RELEASED THIS AFTERNOON!!! About 2pm PST
_________________________________________________________________________
Exelixis, Inc.’s EXEL oncology drug, Cometriq (cabozantinib), received fast-track status from the FDA for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who have received one prior therapy.
The FDA grants fast track designation to those candidates that are being developed for the treatment of serious conditions with unmet medical need. The overall goal of the process is to get new drugs to patients faster.
Cometriq is already approved in the U.S. for the treatment of progressive, metastatic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). Additionally, it has been granted conditional approval in the EU for the treatment of adult patients with progressive, unresectable locally advanced or metastatic MTC. The company has a distribution and commercialization agreement with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (Sobi) for the MTC indication of Cometriq in the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey and potentially other countries.
We note that recently Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. CLDX entered into a clinical trial collaboration with Roche RHHBY to evaluate Celldex’s varlilumab plus Roche’s MPDL3280A for the treatment of RCC.
Cometriq is currently being evaluated in a phase III pivotal study (METEOR) in patients with metastatic RCC who been treated with at least one VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Top-line results from this study are expected in the second quarter of 2015. The company is also evaluating Cometriq in another phase III study (CELESTIAL) for the treatment of second-line hepatocellular carcinoma.
Apart from these two studies, Cometriq is being evaluated in other studies for a wide range of cancers including second- or later-line persistent or recurrent ovarian cancer (phase II) and second or third-line EGFR wild-type non-small cell lung cancer (phase II).
Meanwhile, Exelixis has several pipeline and regulatory updates lined up this year. The company expects the FDA to deliver a response by Aug 11 on the approval status of cobimetinib for use in combination with Zelboraf (vemurafenib) for the treatment of BRAF V600 mutation-positive advanced melanoma. We note that the company has an agreement with Genentech, a subsidiary of Roche, for cobimetinib.
The company also expects data from the Cometriq phase II studies in the first half of 2015.
We are encouraged by the company’s effort to expand the label of its lead drug, Cometriq, and expect investor focus to remain on further company updates.
_________________________________________________________________________
Exelixis, Inc.’s EXEL oncology drug, Cometriq (cabozantinib), received fast-track status from the FDA for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) who have received one prior therapy.
The FDA grants fast track designation to those candidates that are being developed for the treatment of serious conditions with unmet medical need. The overall goal of the process is to get new drugs to patients faster.
Cometriq is already approved in the U.S. for the treatment of progressive, metastatic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). Additionally, it has been granted conditional approval in the EU for the treatment of adult patients with progressive, unresectable locally advanced or metastatic MTC. The company has a distribution and commercialization agreement with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (Sobi) for the MTC indication of Cometriq in the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey and potentially other countries.
We note that recently Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. CLDX entered into a clinical trial collaboration with Roche RHHBY to evaluate Celldex’s varlilumab plus Roche’s MPDL3280A for the treatment of RCC.
Cometriq is currently being evaluated in a phase III pivotal study (METEOR) in patients with metastatic RCC who been treated with at least one VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Top-line results from this study are expected in the second quarter of 2015. The company is also evaluating Cometriq in another phase III study (CELESTIAL) for the treatment of second-line hepatocellular carcinoma.
Apart from these two studies, Cometriq is being evaluated in other studies for a wide range of cancers including second- or later-line persistent or recurrent ovarian cancer (phase II) and second or third-line EGFR wild-type non-small cell lung cancer (phase II).
Meanwhile, Exelixis has several pipeline and regulatory updates lined up this year. The company expects the FDA to deliver a response by Aug 11 on the approval status of cobimetinib for use in combination with Zelboraf (vemurafenib) for the treatment of BRAF V600 mutation-positive advanced melanoma. We note that the company has an agreement with Genentech, a subsidiary of Roche, for cobimetinib.
The company also expects data from the Cometriq phase II studies in the first half of 2015.
We are encouraged by the company’s effort to expand the label of its lead drug, Cometriq, and expect investor focus to remain on further company updates.
