EntreMed shares fall on cancer drug report
By Stephanie O'Brien, CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 10:23 AM ET May 11, 2000
NewsWatch
ROCKVILLE, Md. (CBS.MW) -- Shares of EntreMed fell more than 25 percent Thursday morning following a report that a much-publicized cancer treatment may not be working as well as had been hoped in an early-stage trial.
Shares of EntreMed (ENMD: news, msgs) were down 10 1/2 to
31 in recent trading.
A report in Thursday's Boston Globe said that endostatin, a drug made by EntreMed, has yet to show dramatic benefits after seven months of testing, citing a senior government research official.
EntreMed couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
"I'm not aware of any major clinical response to date," said Dr. James Pluda, a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, which is overseeing two of the three trials.
While endostatin may yet prove to be effective, the investigator's statement contradicts persistent Internet rumors that the drug has made impressive gains against tumors in one or more of about 45 patients in the three Phase I trials, the Boston Globe report said.
Pluda's comments followed other disappointing news for the research, as word leaked out that one patient had to be dropped from the endostatin trial because his tumor had
continued to grow. A number of other patients have dropped out of the trials, but researchers will not say how many, the report also said.
The drug, discovered by Dr. Judah Folkman and colleagues at Children's Hospital in Boston, has generated much publicity in the past couple of years, causing significant volatility in EntreMed's stock. |
