PeakTrader.com

[administrator]

HGSI has a market cap of $1.34 billion. Several billion dollars may flow into the stock on expectations of a successful blockbuster drug. HGSI Jan '07 10 calls are 2, Jan '07 12.5 calls are 1.10, and Jan '07 15 calls are 0.55. Article below:

Hitting The Self-Destruct Button
Robert Langreth, 06.04.06, 2:05 PM ET

Related Quotes

AMGN 67.48 + 0.00

DNA 80.29 + 0.00

HGSI 10.19 + 0.00

Atlanta - Existing cancer-drug therapies kill fast-growing cells, disrupt crucial molecular signals or attack tumor supply lines. But an intriguing new class of experimental drugs on display here at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting aims to make cancer cells commit suicide.

Researchers at Genentech (nyse: DNA - news - people ) and Amgen (nasdaq: AMGN - news - people ), as well as at Human Genome Sciences (nasdaq: HGSI - news - people ), are in early human tests of drugs that aim to attach and stimulate so-called "death receptors" on the surface of cancer cells. The hope is this will activate a molecular self-destruct program contained within all cells. Meanwhile, Japan's Astellas Pharma is in early human trials of another approach to stimulate cancer-cell suicide.

While it is far from certain the drugs will help cancer patients, the new concept is generating interest because it would represent a completely new type of therapy that works in a very different way from existing drug classes. Cancer cells lose the natural balance between proliferation and death that normal cells have, resulting in tumors that gradually get larger and larger.

Genentech and Amgen are jointly developing a protein drug called Apo2L/Trail, while Human Genome Sciences is testing two competing drugs, HGS-ETR1 and HGS-ETR2.

"The analogy that I am using is that maybe you can bring the tumor to the edge of a cliff with chemotherapy or [Genentech's] Avastin, and this drug will finish it off," says Roy Herbst of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, who presented early results of a preliminary safety study of Genentech and Amgen's APO2l/Trail in 37 patients.

The Genentech drug did not destroy patients' livers as some had feared, and it had some hints of efficacy in the trial. Herbst said that trials of various combinations of the APO2L drug and existing medicines were now being planned. Doctors also presented results of competing drugs from Human Genome Sciences at the meeting.

Another very promising cell-suicide inducing drug is called YM155, which is being developed by Astellas Pharma. At ASCO, Anthony Tolcher of the Institute for Drug Development in San Antonio, presented results from an initial trial showing that it dramatically shrank tumors in five of 41 patients tested.

"This is the most provocative response rate of any cancer drug in a Phase I trial that I have seen in eight years," said Tolcher. He said the drug is now in second stage trials. Side effects included mouth sores and fever.