Peregrine Pharmaceuticals is Flying High

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So what is Peregrine Pharmaceutical Inc business?

This company is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that develops and manufactures monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of cancer and viral infections. As of April 30, 2011, the Company had three Phase II clinical programs, including two oncology programs, as well as a hepatitis C virus (HCV) program. Peregrine's pipeline of investigational monoclonal antibodies is based on two technology platforms, including phosphatidylserine (PS)-targeting antibodies and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)/histone-targeting antibodies. Bavituximab is its PS-targeting antibody. Cotara is the Company's DNA/histone-targeting antibody-based on its Tumor Necrosis Therapy (TNT) technology platform. Peregrine's wholly owned biomanufacturing subsidiary is Avid Bioservices, Inc., which provides integrated cGMP commercial and clinical manufacturing services for Peregrine and third-party clients (Compliments of Scottrade).

As you can see, this company’s main focus is using antibodies to targeting difficult cancers by either targeting a phospholipid called phosphatidylserine at the cell membrane or by targeting a DNA-histone complex . These are both effective mechanisms for targeting a cancer, especially if it is hard to reach by conventional manners.
More recently, Peregrine provided promising evidence that  bavituximab  improves tumor response and survival trends in a randomized Phase II trial for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Additionally, Peregrine announced the start of investigator initiated Phase 1 trial with for up to 18 patients with stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma with the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) at Texas Southwestern Medical Center (http://ir.peregrineinc.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=692072)

So why did I pick this company to blog about? Well, I did a stock screen for companies in healthcare>> Biotechnology and Drugs  that  were over 20% increase in stock price in the last  5 days and checked out the charts of the stock. This stock has had a terrific run for the last few days. The news on PPHM suggests that it will continue to increase; how much more is not known.

Both S&P and Reuters have improved their rating from the negatives to neutral (Rank 4) four days ago. This year is looking good for the Biotechnology stocks.

My 2 cents, as a stock, I would buy it (haha if I had money) at 1.80 is a bargain and watch it to continue its ride up. I would keep an eye on the technicals, because there is sure to be a dip that would be a buying point. Tell me what you think….

Check out the chart below:

Genetech and personalized medicine

Genetech developed a drug against a specific subset of metastatic breast cancer, called HER2-positive mBC. This drug targets the HER2 receptor and blocks it from activating downstream signals by receptor dimerization. This is an awesome accomplishment, but what is made to sound so exciting, is really just Genetech combining the drugs they already have created, and see if they improve patient outcome even more so. It’s a pretty standard process, if you target the cancer in different ways, you are more likely to destroy the cancerous tissue.  This concept has already been used to combat AIDS by giving people a cocktail of drugs.

The drug they are calling Perjeta (which you have to love these names!) is a combination of  Herceptin (which interferes with HER2, part of the EGF-superfamily) and docetaxel (which interferes with the microtubule cytoskeleton).  The name Perjecta is derived from the concept of “personalized” medicine, where they examine the cancer and see what genes and hence proteins are mutated, and target them specifically to a person. This way if a person does not have a problem with the HER2 protein and pathway, they would not be treated with this drug combination.

Their data will be submitted for presentation at an upcoming medical meeting. And Dr. Barron, chief medical officer and head of Global Product Development  is excited that there is an improvement in survival in the CLEOPATRA (Clinical Evaluation Of Pertuzumab  And TRAstuzumab) study.  There are a whole bunch of side effects which include diarrhea, hair loss, low white blood cell count with or without fever, upset stomach, fatigue, rash and peripheral neuropathy (numbness, tingling or damage to the nerves). The most common Grade 3-4 adverse reactions (rate greater than 2 percent) were low white blood cell count with or without fever, decrease in a certain type of white blood cell, diarrhea, damage to the nerves, and decrease in red blood cell count, weakness and fatigue. But if you survive cancer, I expect people are willing to accept the side effects during treatment. Although, I’m not sure I’d be too excited about damaging my nerves.

Sources: http://www.biospace.com/News/genentech-says-perjeta-combination-increased/264814