Northwest Biotherapeutics Inc. (NWBO:NASDAQ) is finally showing signs of strength in the past month. This very well could be a dead cat bounce for a stock that’s been beat up until recently. But non the less it’s refreshing news for shareholders who have endured a downtrend in 2016. NWBO is currently trading above its 10 day simple moving average the moving average is rising and suggests that there has been recent buying interest in this stock.
Investor sentiment is also peaking (no coincidence). StockTwits gives NWBO a 95% positive sentiment rating vs just 66% in July.
Northwest Biotherapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:NWBO) has had a difficult year to say the least. As is the case with many biotech stocks, which can be quite volatile and nerve racking for novice traders. NWBO has a 52 week low of $.32 and a high of $8.59. Current price is $.63 on 7.5M shares with 81.2M in the float.
Biotech has seen some substantial declines since the start of this year due to political comments on pricing, which is expected to persist for an uncertain period of time. The market-cap-weighted iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF is down about 14% so far this year.
Some companies in the industry, however, signal recovery and growth potential given M&A activities and the development of new methodologies and platforms. Northwest Biotherapeutics Inc NWBO may just be one of those companies potential to make a big turn to finish they year. The company released some new updates at the 5th Annual SMi Cancer Vaccines Conference in London today.
“NW Bio Presents Updated Data From DCVax(R)-Direct Phase I”. Some highlights of Dr. Bosch’s presentation on Sept 21st included:
- The top 20% of these patients have so far exceeded 2 years of survival and are still alive. The longest survivor to date has reached nearly 3 years. See Attachment A for details.
- The top 30% of these patients (including pancreatic, melanoma, lung, ovarian, sarcoma and other cancers) as a combined group have an average survival to date of 26.7 months, compared with an average of expected survival times of 12.3 months. Individually, these patients have also substantially exceeded their respective expected survival times. See Attachment B for details.
- The continuing positive survival results correlate with underlying mechanisms of action and cellular and immune profiles, including phenotype analyses, relative production of a wide range of diverse cytokines by the dendritic cells. Additional positive observations include T-cell infiltration, and PD-L1 expression.
- 64% of the patients evaluable for PD-L1 checkpoint expression (14 of 22) showed either de novo or significantly increased expression of PD-L1 following DCVax-Direct treatment, indicating potential for combination of DCVax-Direct and checkpoint inhibitors.
- The diverse cancers covered in this trial are responsible for approximately 800,000 new cases annually in the US and also at least 800,000 new cases in Europe. When these cancers reach the inoperable metastatic stage, there are no effective treatments available today.
Although this may sound promising overall to shareholders, it’s important to keep the bigger picture in mind. Updates are nice, but bringing this to market can be an extremely costly and lengthy process, unless they can find a partner in the near-term (which is a possibility with M&A activity picking up).
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NW Bio is developing cancer vaccines designed to treat a broad range of solid tumor cancers more effectively than current treatments, and without the side effects of chemotherapy drugs. NW Bio’s proprietary manufacturing technology enables the Company to produce its personalized vaccine in an efficient, cost-effective manner.
The Company has a broad platform technology for DCVax dendritic cell-based vaccines. The Company’s lead product, DCVax-L, is currently in a 348-patient Phase III trial for patients with newly diagnosed Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most aggressive and lethal brain cancer. The Company’s second product, DCVax-Direct, is currently in a 60-patient Phase I/II trial for direct injection into all types of inoperable solid tumor cancers.
The Company has also conducted a Phase I/II trial with DCVax for late stage ovarian cancer together with the University of Pennsylvania. The Company previously received clearance from the FDA for a 612-patient Phase III trial with its third product, DCVax-Prostate, for late stage prostate cancer.
Keep in mind biotech and pharmaceutical companies all go through Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 studies. In the case of drugs, the FDA is responsible for approving all drugs for public sale. The agency requires that all drugs follow the same path to approval.
- Phase 1 Trials test for safety.
- Phase 2 Does the drug work?
- Phase 3 Is it better than current treatments?
If the Biotech Industry can turn the corner to end the year companies like Northwest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO:NASDAQ) could very well follow suit. To get the full story on NWBO subscribe below to Oracle Dispatch right now.
