Oct 10 we had the Yervoy preliminary data release. The efficacy results exceeded my expectations, but the safety data was unexpected, in a very good way: no dose limiting toxicities in 17 patients treated with Yervoy/Cavatak combo. Only one grade 3 level fatigue as the only grade 3 or 4 toxicity!!! That just doesn't happen with the checkpoint inhibitors usually. It may be telling us of a truly outstanding benefit in that the viral infection could be redirecting the immune related activities against normal tissues that you normally see. One study i read had a 31% rate of grade 3 or 4 toxicities with Yervoy treatment.
"According to data from the first 17 patients evaluable for best overall tumour response assessment, a disease control rate2 (DCR) of 82.4 percent (14/17 patients) was demonstrated, including nine patients (53 percent) with an objective tumour response and five patients with stable disease. Of these 17 patients, 66 percent had been previously treated with at least one line of systemic therapy."
"No dose-limiting toxicities, and no CAVATAK-related grade 3 or higher adverse events have been reported. There has been one YERVOY-related grade 3 fatigue adverse event (6%)"
I realize this is a small sample size, but the results were correctly interpreted by the market and helped boost VLA up to $1.35.
4 months of "no news" should not effect the share price this much.
ASX listing is part of the reason, hard to get retail investors from NA to invest in ASX stocks, and it looks like Investment Banks in Australia are not in there supporting the price with their retail clients.
Patience required.
VLA Price at posting:
89.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
