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Biotech / Medical : Ligand (LGND) Breakout! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Russian Bear who wrote (19997)	5/5/1998 6:36:00 AM
From: Henry Niman	Respond to of 32384

Here's what FT had to say about ENMD: EntreMed soars on enthusiastic report By Victoria Griffith in Boston The share price of a tiny Maryland-based biotechnology company almost quintupled yesterday after an article enthusiastic about its cancer technology appeared in Sunday's New York Times. Company officials at EntreMed were shocked when its stock price soared from $12 1/16 to $58 5/8 in mid-day trading yesterday. The newspaper quoted Dr Richard Klausner, a prominent researcher at the US National Cancer Institute, as calling the technology "the single most exciting thing on the horizon" for the treatment of cancer. The story was picked up by television news and newspapers around the country. EntreMed was formed to develop and market two molecules, endostatin and angiostatin, which starve cancers by depriving them of the blood they need to grow. Discovered by Dr Judah Folkman of the Boston Children's Hospital, both molecules inhibit the formation of new blood vessels when injected into tumours. In mice, the molecules have been shown to cure all forms of cancer with no side effects. Biotechnology stocks commonly rise and fall steeply based on trial results, but such price changes are very unusual in technology that is in pre-clinical stage, as EntreMed's anti-cancer molecules are. The company will not start human clinical trials for at least another year. "[The share price surge] is certainly a surprise, since we haven't issued any major announcements on our drugs for at least a month and we're so far from approval by the Food & Drug Administration," EntreMed said. Moreover, the good news about EntreMed's technology has been known for months. A cover story in the science journal Nature last year revealed that one of EntreMed's anti-cancer molecules, angiogenesis, had cured tumours in mice. The New York Times itself had already published two articles on the research in the past six months. EntreMed researchers warned that their anti-cancer research was years away from approval. While the National Cancer Institute - which was unavailable for comment yesterday - has said it would like the drugs to be fast-tracked for approval, it has no influence in the matter. The leap from mice to humans, moreover, is often disappointing.