Progenics' cancer vaccine loses support

Progenics Pharmaceuticals has taken a massive blow to its share price onnews that a group of government-funded oncologists have concluded their participation in the firm's Phase III clinical trial of its GMK melanoma vaccine. On the day of the news (May 26), the firm's stock nose-dived almost 70% to close at $10.00 on more than 7 million shares traded, a far cry from its 52-week high of $96.00 earlier this year.

The situation has come about after the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group conducted an "unplanned early analysis" on a subset of patients enrolled in the pivotal trial which indicated "that the relapse-free and overall survival rates for patients receiving the vaccine were lower than those for patients receiving high-dose alpha interferon."

However, Progenics contests this finding, noting that, unlike the alpha interferon group, only about half the patients receiving the GMK vaccine had completed the study protocol. It intends now to continue the trial, believing that the follow-up period has been too short to demonstrate the full benefit of its immune therapy, adding that "the relapse-free and overall survival rates....are tracking generally as expected at this time based on our previous clinical experience."