Five Prime Shares Dive on Latest Hiccup For Cancer Immunotherapy Combos
Summary
The latest example: an experimental treatment from Five Prime Therapeutics fell short of expectations when combined with one of the leading immunotherapy drugs, nivolumab (Opdivo), from Bristol-Myers Squibb, in a small study.Leerink Partners analyst Michael Schmidt wrote that the serious side effects seen, such as high levels of an enzyme called creatinine phosphokinase, could raise questions among investors until the full set of data are presented at the SITC conference later this week.Immunotherapies have produced promising results in a number of cancers, but they don’t work for everyone, which is one reason that companies are testing combinations of drugs in an effort to bring this approach to more patients.AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) saw a closely watched combination of immunotherapy drugs fail a key test in newly diagnosed lung cancer patients.In June, patient deaths led Merck (NYSE: MRK) to stop a multiple myeloma study testing its immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with two older treatments for the disease.