During its third-quarter conference call yesterday, GPC Biotech
Last week, GPC announced that in a phase 3 study, its chemotherapy treatment Satraplatin failed to improve overall survival rates in late-stage prostate cancer patients, compared with a control group. The company didn't give any updates on the multiple subgroup analyses, but as GPC's CEO has said, it's now best to consider Satraplatin a phase 2 compound.
Satraplatin is still a viable drug candidate, based on the data it has produced so far. But now that GPC has to push the drug through phase 2 studies and start phase 3 testing all over again, it will almost certainly take years before Satraplatin reaches the market -- if it ever gets that far at all.
With the near-term revenue from Satraplatin now probably gone -- barring a surprise approval in the European Union -- GPC expects to implement a substantial reorganization, so that its approximately $87 million in cash will last until the end of 2009.
Besides Satraplatin, GPC has a phase 1 monoclonal antibody in development, along with several anti-tumor preclinical small-molecule compounds. In the first half of the upcoming year, GPC expects to bring one of these small-molecule drug candidates into phase 1 testing.
In more encouraging news for Satraplatin, a data-monitoring board recommended a few days ago that the phase 2 study of Satraplatin in combination with Genentech's
GPC also announced this week that it won an arbitration hearing with Spectrum Pharmaceuticals
But with marketing approval on Satraplatin such a distant hope, and other new therapies all vying for a spot in a continuously more crowded cancer-treatment market, it's impossible to recommend shares of GPC, even at these reduced levels. There are just too many other oncology-focused investment options out there that could serve you better.