What it looks like to gain and lose $1 billion
NextCure had quite a week. It began with good news: The company’s in-development immunotherapy treatment appeared to work in two patients with particularly aggressive lung cancer. That came from an abstract, and it suggested NextCure might be sitting on a drug that could help when the likes of Keytruda and Opdivo fail, which is why the company’s share price rose about 250%.
But when it came time for NextCure to present the detailed data behind that abstract on Saturday, the story got a bit more complicated. It turns out those two positive data points were surrounded by 32 instances in which the drug had no meaningful effect. By yesterday morning, NextCure had come back to earth.
Beyond making for a striking chart, the NextCure experience underlines just how desperate biotech is to find a next big thing in immuno-oncology. For years, novel agents have produced disappointing data, and scores of combination trials have resulted in hard-to-interpret results. The lesson here is perhaps the value of skepticism.
But when it came time for NextCure to present the detailed data behind that abstract on Saturday, the story got a bit more complicated. It turns out those two positive data points were surrounded by 32 instances in which the drug had no meaningful effect. By yesterday morning, NextCure had come back to earth.
Beyond making for a striking chart, the NextCure experience underlines just how desperate biotech is to find a next big thing in immuno-oncology. For years, novel agents have produced disappointing data, and scores of combination trials have resulted in hard-to-interpret results. The lesson here is perhaps the value of skepticism.
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