Cancer Conference Draws Unprecedented Public, Investor Interest
Bloomberg News
May 15, 1998, 3:50 p.m. PT
Cancer Conference Draws Unprecedented Public, Investor Interest
Los Angeles, May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Biotechnology firms and
big drug companies with cutting-edge research on cancer are
basking in unprecedented media and public interest as the premier
medical conference on cancer opens this weekend in Los Angeles.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual
conference ''will be probably the most watched in the 19 years
I've been attending,'' said Charles Engelberg, an
analyst with Americal Securities.
This year's conference will be the largest ever, with about
20,000 attending - 6,000 more than last year, organizers say.
Press attendance is expected to be up as much as 25 percent,
after a glowing New York Times report on the cancer-fighting
effect of two experimental drugs in mice focused the attention of
investors and the imagination of the public on the potential for
hot new drugs.
Conference planners have readied fax machines and row upon
row of phone lines and fax machines for the hordes of television,
print and radio reporters they expect will show up, to hear
what's hot in cancer.
The maker of the experimental drugs touted as a potential
cure in the Times report, EntreMed Inc., is still years away from
marketing them. Still, for cancer doctors and companies making
painstaking headway against the stubborn killer, this year's
conference offers the chance to vaunt new and upcoming treatments
which -- though not as splashy as a potential cure -- hold
promise for changing the way cancer is treated.
Investor interest at the conference will focus on companies
including Eli Lilly & Co., Genentech Inc., and Sequus
Pharmaceuticals Inc., that have drugs in the final stages of
testing that aim to shrink tumors, boost treatments or even
prevent cancer altogether.
Out of the Lab
''Progress is being made,'' Robert Mayer, President of the
American Society of Clinical Oncology said in an interview with
the Bloomberg Forum.
''A whole new panoply of potential new treatments -- which
have been maturing, gestating really, in the lab for 15 years -
now we are beginning to be able to apply.''
Mayer said promising treatments include drugs being tested
by Genentech Inc. for treating advanced spreading breast cancer,
by Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. for late stage colon cancer, and by
Zeneca Group and Eli Lilly & Co. for preventing breast cancer are
just a few of the offerings at the conference which could
dramatically change the outlook for cancer patients.
''This is all sort of coming together both in the present
and for the future,'' he said. ''God knows what we'll have in the
future which will be even better.''
These companies, with drugs already on the market or in
final stages of testing and are also that much closer to grabbing
a share of the multibillion dollar market for cancer drugs.
Investors will be watching for data from companies including
South San Francisco-based Genentech, which will present early
human trials on its treatment to stop tumors by shrinking their
blood vessels, a strategy similar to the one EntreMed is
pursuing.
If this works, Genentech ''will be the first to do it,''
said Jon Alsenas, an analyst with Furman Selz LLC.
More important to most investors and patients, however, are
studies Genentech will present on Herceptin, its revolutionary
breast cancer drug and a member of a brand new class of so-called
monoclonal antibody drugs to be used to treat cancer.
Genentech's drug is designed to work in women who produce
too much of a certain destructive protein, making their breast
cancers that much more menacing. The drug acts in a very precise
way, latching onto and inactivating the receptors for that
protein.
Another biotechnology company hoping to reap the benefits of
increased attention is Sequus Pharmaceuticals. The Menlo Park,
California-based firm is going to present an array of data from
22 studies of its drug Doxil -- currently approved to treat the
decreasing number of patients with the AIDS-related Kaposi's
sarcoma cancer -- to treat different forms of cancer. Exposure at
the conference could lead doctors to use its drug much more
widely, analysts say.
''In the cancer market, the studies you do have the most to
do with driving the product forward,'' said Craig Henderson,
chairman and chief executive officer at Sequus. About half of the
drug's use already comes from uses that have yet to be approved,
he said.
And approval for wider uses could drive sales to $150
million by 2001 from $30 million last year, according to Leslie
Wright, an analyst with BancAmerica Robertson Stephens.
Lilly's Coming-Out
At least one coming-out party for a big pharmaceutical
company will be held Monday night, as Eli Lilly steps center
stage and researchers present the long awaited results of cancer
prevention studies of its bone protector, Evista.
Stakes on Monday will be high, because Lilly needs to
present convincing data to boost confidence in the drug's
blockbuster potential, analysts said. Disappointing early sales
of Evista have made Lilly fall about almost one percent this
year, lagging the 19 percent return of the Standard & Poor's
Drugs Index.
Shares in the Indianapolis, Indiana-based company jumped 8
percent last month just on an advance summary of the data to be
shown. Since then, Lilly shares have declined on worries that the
drug won't perform as expected.
And analysts say the company is hoping the breast cancer
prevention use will drive a growth in sales for the drug over
time. Researched and approved in the U.S. as a designer hormone
drug for preventing the bone loss which strikes most women after
menopause, Evista has since shown evidence of protecting women
from other possible medical problems, including heart disease,
and -- the topic of Monday's presentation -- breast and uterine
cancers.
Lilly's presentations at ASCO also may let it ride the
coattails of another breast cancer drug, tamoxifen, which is sold
by Zeneca Group Plc and Barr Laboratories, analysts said.
Tamoxifen has been found to prevent breast cancer as well as
treat it.
''They're trying to borrow some of the excitement from
tamoxifen,'' Saks said.
While Zeneca's drug could be approved by the Food and Drug
Administration within the next six months, the drug carries an
increased risk of other cancers -- something Lilly's Evista,
still in earlier testing stages, has yet to show.
And ASCO president Mayer says much of the news, if not show-
stopping is more hopeful than ever.
''Its very, very exciting,'' Mayer said.
--Kristin Reed with reporting by Jim Finkle in Los Angeles and |
