UPDATED: Medarex Stock Defies Gravity Despite Nonsensical Ipilimumab Release
Everyone who is anyone agrees that Monday's no-details press release from the Mayo Clinic about two three men whose prostate cancer disappeared during a trial Medarex's ipilimumab is just plain crazy.
- UPDATE: A third patient has seen a benefit, Dow Jones Newswires adds.
- The statement didn't say how many men were in the test. (Although the ClinicalTrials.gov database indicates it's 108.)
- The study was "supported" by Medarex.
- A different study by Sloan-Kettering Memorial had much less spectacular results ("While Medarex issued a press release on May 31, 2009 summarizing the results from three Phase 2 studies of ipilimumab in metastatic melanoma at ASCO, there was no such communication regarding the Phase 2 results from MSKCC in prostate cancer that certainly don't live up to the hype generated by the results from the Mayo Clinic report.")
- There was no info on the study design.
- Ipilimumab was not being tested in isolation.
- And a chorus of Wall Street analysts expressed caution about reading too much into the miracle results.
As for the Mayo Clinic, the leader of the trial, Dr. Eugene Kwon, appears to have formed his conclusion prior to actually seeing the full results:
"This is one of the holy grails of prostate cancer research," says Dr. Kwon. "We've been looking for this for years."
A cynic might be tempted to suggest that that there was some sort of benefit to Medarex's management in the unqualified statement being released prior to the full results, and the accompanying bump in the stock.In a completely unrelated coincidence, the CEO of Medarex, Howard Pien received double in stock what he received in base salary for 2008.
To repeat what I've said before: If Medarex gets this thing to market I'll write a note of apology to Pien and his team. But until then, more solid information would be nice.
Correction: This item was updated with new information following reaction by a reader in the comments section below.