Sierra Oncology reported a late-stage win Tuesday for a bone cancer drug it acquired from an industry giant at a discount three years ago — and the biotech stock catapulted higher.
In the final-phase study, one-quarter of patients who received Sierra Oncology's bone marrow cancer treatment showed an improvement in symptoms. That compares with just 9% of patients given a standard drug. Sierra now plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration for approval in the second quarter.
"These data are extremely exciting and everything we had hoped to see from the (study)," Sierra Chief Executive Stephen Dilly said in a written statement.
On the stock market today, the biotech stock rocketed 46.2% to 22.68. During the regular session, shares touched their highest point since July 2019.
Biotech Stock: Succeeding Where Gilead Didn't
Sierra bought the drug, called momelotinib, for just $3 million up front from Gilead Sciences. Gilead previously spent $510 million to buy YM Biosciences in 2012 for access to momelotinib. But the drug put up several testing failures, leading Gilead to sell it at a discounted price.
Sierra tested momelotinib in patients with myelofibrosis, a type of bone marrow cancer, who were also anemic and had already received another drug, called a JAK inhibitor. Half of all myelofibrosis patients are anemic at the time of diagnosis and "virtually all become anemic over time," said Dr. Ruben Mesa, co-principal investigator of the study.
In addition to a reduction in symptoms, 31% of patients who received momelotinib no longer required blood transfusions, Sierra said in a news release. In comparison, just 20% of patients given the standard drug met the same mark. The clean sweep in test results helped the biotech stock fly.
More patients who received the standard drug reported side effects than those given momelotinib — another boon for the biotech stock.
Follow Allison Gatlin on Twitter at @IBD_AGatlin.
