BioMedReports.Com, the news portal which
covers Wall Street's biomedical sector and delivers financial and
investment intelligence to a community of highly informed investors, has
published an exclusive interview with the CEO of Novelos Therapeutics, Inc.
(OTCBB: NVLT), Harry S. Palmin.
It's become pretty obvious, even to the most casual biotech sector
observer, that patients involved in Novelos' pivotal Phase III trial for
lung cancer are living longer than expected.
"These patients with a median survival of eight to ten months unfortunately
die pretty quickly," explains Palmin. "One year survival, which is another
way to look at this, is just about 40%."
But Wall Street has begun to take more interest in the company and the
study since over a year and a half after the enrollment target of patients
was reached, the number of the expected deaths has not yet occurred.
In the interview, Palmin reveals:
"...Avastin is the only drug in non-small cell lung cancer, first line
treatment, that showed a survival advantage. They showed a two month
survival advantage, 12.3 months versus 10.3, but the drug has severe
toxicities associated with it on top of the chemotherapy toxicities and
it's very expensive. It's also only available to very few lung cancer
patients because the histology it works for is non-squamous.
"The point that I'm trying to make is that given our current statistical
projections, we should be on track to achieve or possibly even exceed our
possible twelve and a half month median survival target.
"By way of background, we started the pivotal Phase III on lung cancer on
the back of three Phase IIs," explains Palmin. "We saw dramatic survival
advantages, better anti-tumor effects and in the United States, we saw
doubling response rates and better toleration of chemotherapy."
SOURCE: BioMedReports.Com