Shares of Panacos Pharmaceuticals Inc. surged Wednesday after the company said it may have identified a group of patients who will respond to its HIV drug candidate bevirimat.
Panacos shares plunged in December due to disappointing trial results, which appeared to show that the drug did not lead to significant improvement. Late Tuesday, the company said a midstage trial showed patients who had few mutations on a protein called HIV Gag were more likely to have a strong response to bevirimat.
The results were drawn from a recent midstage clinical trial.
Shares rose 5 cents, or 7.3 percent, to 74 cents. The stock last traded at 87 cents in December. Wednesday's trading volume was nearly triple the stock's average over the past 100 days.
Analysts said Panacos will have to conduct new trials to prove its hypothesis, but Bear Stearns analyst Mark Schoenebaum upgraded Panacos shares to "Outperform," from "Peer Perform" on the news. He estimated peak sales of $200 million.
"Panacos believes it may be able to predetermine the responder population with a simple blood test," he said. "If Panacos can pre-determine efficacy in a subpopulation of HIV patients, we believe there will be a market for bevirimat."
Cowen and Co. analyst Eric Schmidt agreed that, if confirmed, the findings would be a major boost to the Watertown, Mass., company.
"If Panacos' hypothesis is correct, Panacos will be in the enviable position of owning 100 percent rights to solid and liquid formulations of a very well tolerated (thus far), once per day, novel mechanism HIV drug," he wrote.
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