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Idec Gets Positive Feedback on New Cancer Drug

Idec Gets Positive Feedback on New Cancer Drug

Biotech: Analysts Find Test Results Promising for Stock

BY MARION WEBB

Senior Staff Writer

Idec Pharmaceuticals Corp. announced promising data from a 22-patient study testing a new candidate for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The San Diego-based biotech firm said Dec. 10 after several months of treatment with Idec-114, the tumors shrank so much that they were no longer detectable in three of 22 patients tested. Sixteen patients also saw reduced tumors.

“The data indicates that Idec-114 is both well-tolerated at the dose levels administered and clinically active, especially at the higher dose levels,” said Dr. Myron Czuczman, principal investigator of the study.

Nearly a third of all patients, 26 percent, had fatigue and 9 percent had nausea, but suffered no serious side effects during treatment.

A bigger trial is needed to determine whether the drug is safe and effective and to meet the Food and Drug Administration’s strict guidelines for drug approval.

Michael King, a biotech analyst for Banc of America Securities in New York, reiterated his “buy” rating on Idec’s stock during last week’s 2002 American Society of Hematology meeting in Philadelphia.

“In our opinion, Idec is a core biotechnology holding for investors,” King said in a Dec. 9 report. Idec already markets two lymphoma drugs, Rituxan and Zevalin.

An FDA panel review on Dec. 17 for a rival drug, Bexxar, made by Seattle-based Corixa Corp., “could present a buying opportunity of Idec,” King wrote in the report.

“We believe any stock weakness, especially as the Bexxar ODAC panel approaches on Dec. 17, presents a buying opportunity of Idec.”

Idec stock closed at $34.21 on Dec. 11.

Idec and its South San Francisco-based co-development and marketing partner, Genentech Inc., said during the hematology meeting an investigational study of Rituxan showed a 55 percent reduced risk of disease progression or relapse in patients with indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The study involved 185 patients, 57 of whom hadn’t received prior therapy, and 128 patients who had received some form of previous chemotherapy.

After four weeks of treatment, the overall response rate was 67 percent for previously untreated patients and 46 percent for those with relapsed disease, Idec said.

Rituxan, a monoclonal antibody, uses the body’s natural defenses to attack and kill cancerous cells.

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