Shares of Biovest International Inc (BVTI.pk) opened the week significantly higher on news that the company's investigational cancer vaccine, BiovaxID, extended the lives of patients treated for follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
According to the data presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting this weekend, patients who received BiovaxID survived disease-free for more than one year longer than those in the control group, on average.
This survivability data is in line with the recent trend of other experimental cancer vaccines, such as Dendreon's (DNDN) Provenge and Oncothyreon's (ONTY) Stimuvax, which are now being measured by how long they prolong the lives of patients who receive the treatments in relation to those who don't.
Previously, cancer vaccines were measured by their effectiveness in combating tumor progression, but data gathered in various clinical trials never clearly indicated that they did that. What the data showed, however, was that patients receiving the cancer vaccines were living longer than those in the control group.
This changed the way companies measured the effectiveness of their vaccines and Dendreon changed the game entirely when the company decided, mid trial, to use survivability as the primary endpoint for it's IMPACT trial.
IMPACT measured the effectiveness of Provenge in treating patients with advanced prostate cancer.
Shares of Dendreon then soared when news of an IMPACT success hit the newswires because the FDA had previously indicated Provenge could be approved based on the survival data.
At this point, Biovest is far from a Dendreon story, but the data released this weekend demonstrates the potential of BiovaxID.
Biovest is currently in discussions with the FDA in preparation for an NDA filing. Addtionally, BiovaxID will soon be available in Europe through a named patient program that allows patients with life threatening illnesses to gain access to experimental drugs.
It would not be fair to any potential investor to omit the fact that Biovest and it's parent company, Accential Biopharmaceuticals, both entered into Chapter 11 bankruptcy late last year.
However, it's been six months and the common stock is still there and, in fact, has returned significant gains to investors that were willing to buy over the course of the previous few months.
The risk of investing in cancer vaccines grows smaller and smaller with every success story such as Provenge, Antigenics' Oncophage and BiovaxID.
On the other hand, none have yet made it to market in the United States.
As always, the true benefit of these vaccines is measured by the patients that they help, any gains to investors should be considered secondary.
VFC is long BVTI.pk, long DNDN, long AGEN.
