Friday, March 23, 2007

ImClone (IMCL) Sharply Higher

Shares of ImClone (IMCL) traded sharply higher in extended hours trading yesterday.  Here's the reason:

“Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) today announced that it has discontinued Vectibix(TM) (panitumumab) treatment in the PACCE trial evaluating the addition of Vectibix to standard chemotherapy and Avastin® (bevacizumab) for the treatment of first-line metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).  [. . .] ‘ We had hoped that adding Vectibix to the current U.S. standard-of-care for patients newly-diagnosed with mCRC would improve outcomes without excessive added toxicity.  Unfortunately, it appears that adding Vectibix to Avastin, when used in combination with oxaliplatin- or irinotecan-based chemotherapy, increased toxicity, without improving efficacy,’ said Roger M. Perlmutter, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president of Research and Development at Amgen.”—Business Wire

Vectibix is seen to be Erbitux's chief rival in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer.  Having followed closely its development, I have always been of the opinion that the level of optimism for Vectibix's success has been poorly-founded.

ImClone (IMCL) closed at $33.88 yesterday before the above news broke at around 5:30.  In after-hours trading it sold as high as $39.32 (+16.06%) and finished at $37.61 (+11.01%).  The extended-hours volume for IMCL was 592,230 or 36.5% of its 3-month average volume for the regular trading session.

Here's a snapshot of the intraday chart from yesterday, which I made at 6:28 p.m.:

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