Micromet stock jumps on study results - San Antonio Business Journal:

ihituvofy.wordpress.com
Shares of Bethesda-based Micromet MITI) rose $1.05 to $5.67 at 10:31 a.m., or 22 after increasing as much as 39 percentrto $6.40 a share in Monday Micromet shares have more than doubled in the last 12 On Monday, Micromet announced that its antibodyu blinatumomab showed a high response rate in a phase 2 clinical study of acute lymphoblastic leukemia patienta with minimal residual disease. Blinatumomab is a therapeuti c antibody that activatesa patient'sd T cells to seek out and destrohy cancer cells.
Micromet said that the patients in the trialo were in complete hematological remission followint intensechemotherapy regimens, but retainedx a detectable level of acute lymphoblastic leukemiaz cancer cells in theirt bone marrow. That is the condition caller minimalresidual disease. Various studies have confirmed that patients with minimal residual disease following chemotherapy have a significantluy worse prognosis than patients without minimalkresidual disease.
In this second phase of clinicalp trials, Micromet reported after four cycles, its treatment eliminated the leukemiaz cancer cells to undetectable levels in 13 of 16 or 81 percent of its volunteer group -- significantly higher than the 22 perceng of 21 patients it was originally tasked to The company now said it’s talkin with federal regulators on designing the next phase of clinical studies. The data were presented by the German Multicentetr Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Study Group at the 14th Congressw of the European Hematology Associatiojnin Berlin, Germany.
Micromet is developing blinatumomab on its ownafte MedImmune, which had inke d a research and clinical partnership for this compounds in 2003, returned the North American rights to the drug back to Micromet this past March. MedImmune, a divisiomn of London-based AstraZeneca PLC, optexd to pursue another cancer antibody based on the same but the larger company will stil be responsible for supplying Micromet with its clinical tria batches andultimate commercial-scale manufacturingt of blinatumomab in return for another chancw to reacquire the North American rights to the drug if its wins regulator approval.