OXiGENE Inc. (OXGN) surges on new cancer treatment

OXiGENE Inc. (Nasdaq: OXGN) shares rose 13.8% to $4.87, after the biotech company on Saturday reported encouraging data on a potential treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. Share volume for the stock tallied 2.3 million shares, already surpassing an all-day high of 1.7 million.

The San Francisco-based company announced Saturday that it presented updated safety and clinical activity data from the FALCON trial, a stratified randomized, controlled Phase 2 study of ZYBRESTAT™ (fosbretabulin tromethamine, or CA4P) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.

An updated analysis conducted approximately 11 months after the enrollment of the last patient in June 2010 showed that the combination regimen of ZYBRESTAT plus bevacizumab, carboplatin and paclitaxel (ZYBRESTAT Arm) was observed to be well-tolerated with no significant cumulative toxicities when compared with the control arm of the study. In addition, a pre-specified subgroup analysis showed meaningful improvements in median time to progression for patients with poor performance status.

Said Dr. Peter Langecker, CEO of OXiGENE, “With several clinical trials completed in multiple indications, we now have a large body of data showing the excellent combinability potential of ZYBRESTAT.

“In addition,” Langecker continued, “this study provides data in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) suggesting that ZYBRESTAT may benefit patients with more advanced stages of disease…. We believe that designing a development plan based on targeting this subgroup of patients could represent a sensible and achievable clinical strategy and we look forward to discussing further development of ZYBRESTAT with potential pharmaceutical partners.”

OXiGENE is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics to treat cancer and eye diseases. The Company’s major focus is developing vascular disrupting agents that selectively disrupt abnormal blood vessels associated with solid tumor progression and visual impairment.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 6th, 2011 at 12:56 pm by Glenn and is filed under Health Care Stocks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.