Drug Company’s Stock Gets Rough Prognosis

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Investors clobbered ImmunoCellular Therapeutics Inc. last week after the company reported disappointing results from a clinical trial of its brain cancer drug.

Shares of the Woodland Hills biotech firm plunged after the company reported Dec. 11 that its vaccine to treat glioblastoma only extended the lives of patients two months instead of the nine-month goal. Two analysts downgraded the company and shares closed Dec. 18 at 74 cents, a drop of 72 percent in one week. That made ImmunoCellular the biggest loser on the LABJ Stock Index. (See Page 38.)

Nevertheless, ImmunoCellular executives told analysts this month that they plan to push ahead with development of the vaccine, ICT-107. They said that the trial showed that the drug had stopped progression of the glioblastoma cancer in 21 patients, so it could still prove an effective treatment.

In the Dec. 11 conference call, executives said they will analyze the clinical trial data more thoroughly and then make their case to the Food and Drug Administration for more trials.

“I believe that it is critical that we continue to develop ICT-107 and use the insights gleaned from this trial to move this technology forward.” said Dr. John Yu, chief scientific officer.

The trial was done with 124 patients with glioblastoma. The study reported the results of the first 64 patients to die and compared the length of time the patients who took ICT-107 lived with those who took a placebo. Based on initial clinical results where some patients lived as much as two years longer, ImmunoCellular scientists set a bar of nine months for this second trial. But they found instead that patients taking ICT-107 lived on average just two months longer, an amount deemed “not statistically significant.”

“The bottom line is that the trial was a failure because overall survival is the gold standard endpoint,” said Vernon Bernardino, an analyst with MLV & Co. in New York who downgraded ImmunoCellular’s stock to “hold” from “buy.”

ImmunoCellular Chief Executive Andrew Gengos said during the conference call that company scientists would take a closer look at the data, focusing on what happens in coming months and years with the patients who are still living. He said the hope was that those patients now taking ICT-107 would have their lives extended well beyond two months.

One analyst was inclined to give ImmunoCellular the benefit of the doubt.

“The trial was an aggressive design, but people are ignoring the data we do have,” said Jason Kolbert, an analyst with Maxim Group in New York who has maintained his “buy” rating. “I believe ICT-107 can in a properly sized trial show a survival advantage.”

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Howard Fine
Howard Fine is a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He covers stories pertaining to healthcare, biomedicine, energy, engineering, construction, and infrastructure. He has won several awards, including Best Body of Work for a single reporter from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers and Distinguished Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists.