Cancer Vaccine Stocks and the Race for a Cure A 50 Trillion Dollar Windfall By Steve Christ Thursday, October 7th, 2010
If you live long enough, you're bound to be affected by cancer.
A parent, a spouse, a friend, a child, or even your own body has a brush with some form of the often fatal disease. Unfortunately, it's as inevitable as the morning sunrise.
Cancer affects not only those who suffer from the illness; but all who know them, as well.
But there is always hope for a better tomorrow when it comes to treatment ? and now more than ever.
A new kind of hope exists in the developing field of therapeutic cancer vaccines, which work by teaching the immune system to fight cancer the same way it would fight off an infection caused by germs.
And while we normally think of vaccines as being preventative in nature, these new therapeutic treatments are designed to combat cancers that are already present.
By working to boost the body's natural defenses, cancer vaccines are intended to delay or stop cancer cell growth; to cause tumor shrinkage; to prevent cancer from coming back; or to eliminate cancer cells that have not been killed by other forms of treatment.
Cancer vaccines: a new option for treatment
In short, what these vaccines offer oncologists is a fourth treatment option in addition to surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
The treatment works by forcing our immune systems to recognize cancerous cells as a threat to the body, thereby helping to eliminate them.
Hardly infallible, our immune systems currently have a hard time recognizing cancer cells as an invasion ? which is one of the reasons cancer is so prevalent to begin with.
Cancer vaccines work to correct these miscues.
But to be effective, cancer immunotherapy must achieve two goals:
First, like traditional vaccines, cancer treatment vaccines must stimulate a specific immune response against the correct target. In other words, they need to be antigen-specific.
And second, the immune responses must be powerful enough to overcome the barriers that cancer cells use to protect themselves from attack by B cells and killer T cells.
When properly delivered, the results have been encouraging for doctors and patients alike.
Cancer vaccine breakthroughs
A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine last week reported immunotherapy dramatically improved the survival rate in children stricken with neuroblastoma, a deadly cancer of the nervous system.
By boosting their immune systems, the two-year survival rate for these children jumped from 46% to 66% without a relapse. Meanwhile, the study was so successful that doctors decided that all patients ? not just those in the trial ? should receive the same treatment.
"This is the biggest improvement we've ever seen in neuroblastoma," said John M. Maris, director of the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
?It?s not a magic bullet, but it's the biggest result we've seen in a long time. This is the culmination of 20 years of work."
(By the way, if you would like to learn more about this trial, there is a great story by CBS news. It gives a face to the neuroblastoma trial in a way words simply cannot.)
But there's more?
Shares of Celldex Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ :CLDX) are up 48% over the last four weeks after the company announced patients who received their CDX-110 lived twice as long as those who only received chemotherapy and radiation.
CDX-110 is a therapeutic drug developed for glioblastoma ? the most common, most aggressive type of brain cancer.
That?s a step in the right direction for 20,000 patients in the United States diagnosed with glioblastomas every year. Without the new vaccines, their prognosis is considerably bleaker.
And it's one of the reasons I'm so bullish on the biotech industry.
A troubled economy aside, this is one sector where the right disruptive discovery can earn you a big payday.
If you have any doubts, just check out the price action in Dendreon Corporation (NASDAQ: DNDN) shares over the last year and a half...
On the strength of the FDA approval of its cancer vaccine Provenge, the market cap of Dendreon jumped from $400 million to almost $6 billion in 18 short months. Along the way, early investors banked gains in excess of 1000%.
That?s why, when I discovered a biotech company working on a cancer vaccine that makes your immune system 1,000 times more effective, I thought it deserved an in-depth look...
As it turns out, this biotech company is currently working on a Phase II study that may someday offer hope to 470,000 women a year diagnosed with cervical cancer.
I've just finished putting together a report on the company, and I suggest you check it out today.
So what would a cure for cancer actually be worth?
According to a study presented by the Chicago Graduate School of Business four years ago, a cure for cancer would have an economic value of $50 trillion for Americans alone ? about four times the U.S. GDP.
Of course, since cancer kills about 1,500 people a day in the United States, I?m not really sure how you could put a number on it...
After all, I think I?m safe in saying that for everyone touched by the disease, a cure would be priceless.
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