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And the positive news continues.................


Long Term Results of Oncothyreon's Stimuvax Look Promising
by: VFC's Stock House May 31, 2009 | about stocks: MKGAY.PK / MRK / ONTY
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Become a Contributor Submit an Article Font Size: PrintEmail TweetThis Oncothyreon's (ONTY) stock has been on the rise for months now, and Saturday's press releases, one each by Oncothyreon and Merck KGaA (MKGAY.PK), gave us some insight as to why.

The press releases coincided with a presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting where representatives of Oncothyreon provided updates on three of the company's pipeline candidates, most notably Stimuvax.


Stimuvax is Oncothyreon's experimental vaccine that induces the body's own immune system to attack cancerous cells and is currently being tested by Merck KGaA in a worldwide Phase III trial. In 2007, Merck (MRK) assumed responsibility for all future development of Stimuvax in a licensing agreement that will pay Oncothyreon various milestone payments and a percentage of net sales, should the vaccine make it to market.

The Stimuvax portion of the ASCO presentation regarded long term safety and survivability data collected from patients who took part in the already completed Phase IIb trial. As expected, if you use the rising stock price as an indicator, the results were positive.

Long term side effects experienced by patients receiving Stimuvax were minor, especially when compared to chemotherapy treatments. Even more encouraging, Stimuvax was keeping patients alive for over a year longer, on average, than those who did not receive the treatment. In cancer years, that is a lifetime.

The most promising aspect of the long term results was that there continued to be no evidence that the immune system, enhanced with Stimuvax, attacked healthy cells and only targeted cancerous ones. This has been a long running concern during the development of cancer immunotherapy treatments and Stimuvax passed the test- so far. It may be years before we hear results from the ongoing Phase III trial which will enroll at least 1,300 patients, so it's still too early to get overly excited about Stimuvax. That being said, we've seen enough to know that there is serious potential here.

The company also provided updates on Phase I trials for PX-866 and PX-12, but it's still too early in their respective development pipelines to invest according to their potential.

Also of note, Oncothyreon recently raised $11 million in a stock offering. The money raised will be used for 'general corporate purposes', minus the development of Stimuvax for which Merck will pay for all future expenses. The stock price dropped after the offering was announced due to dilution, but financial deals such as this one are common with small biotechs. However, serious investors can use the dips that follow these deals as a buying opportunity.

It is also worth noting that the company received this financing on pretty good terms ($2.85 per unit) considering that the stock was trading for below a dollar just a few months ago.

Although the stock price has more than tripled in a fairly short amount of time, I haven't stopped accumulating shares. Based on the information that we've received so far, Stimuvax has the potential to move ONTY the way Provenge has for DNDN.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/140514-long-term-results-of-oncothyreon-s-stimuvax-look-promising?source=yahoo