Arqule’s Imminent Licensing Deal

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

   

The past year certainly was not an easy one for Arqule’s (ARQL) investors who saw their shares plummet more than 50%. Perhaps this kind of decline does not look too big of a deal for a small biotech company when compared with “solid” investments such as AIG (AIG) or Citi (C), but the current price level is certainly not what the institutionals who bought $55 million worth of stock for 7.75$ a share last year envisioned. The good news is that now, with a new management team and an imminent partnership deal for Arqule’s lead compound, ARQ-197, the stock represents an opportunity for an aggressive upward move in 2009.

 

The company has been talking about licensing ARQ-197 for some time now, but based on remarks made by its new CEO, there are active discussions with potential partners that could mature into a deal in the near future. Last month, the Oppenheimer & Co healthcare team issued an insightful report titled “Collaborations as Catalysts” which mentioned ARQ-197 as a potential licensing candidate. According to Oppenheimer, although such a licensing deal could happen already this year, it is more likely to happen next year following the release of clinical data from ongoing clinical trials.

(more…)

Posted in kinase inhibitors | 2 Comments »

Will Synta Break A 30 Year Old Record? (Part II)

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

 For the first part of this article click here. 

Synta launched a phase I trial in 2004 for the evaluation of elesclomol in combination with paclitaxel in advanced solid tumors. The trial enrolled 35 highly-pretreated patients, who received paclitaxel in combination with escalating doses of elesclomol. There were two partial responses (5.7%), one patient with kaposi’s sarcoma and another patient with ovarian cancer in addition to 15 patients who achieved stable disease. Because this was a combination trial, there was no way of knowing whether elesclomol had a synergistic effect with paclitaxel. Nevertheless, there was evidence that elesclomol can sensitize tumors to chemotherapy, as some of the patients who responded to the treatment had previously progressed during treatment with paclitaxel alone. Another important observation was that elesclomol and paclitaxel can be safely co-administered. Elesclomol then entered three phase II trials in melanoma, non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and soft tissue sarcoma. Both the NSCLC and the sarcoma trials failed to show a benefit from adding elesclomol to paclitaxel. The melanoma trial, on the other hand, produced a very impressive set of data.

  (more…)

Posted in solid tumors | 3 Comments »