Cytokinetics Stock on the Rise

Cytokinetics (CYTK) is a clinical trial drugmaker that has been making some ground-breaking news this past week. They have numerous clinical trials taking place right now ranging from oncology (breast cancer and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) to high risk heart failure. Their stock has risen in the past week from 3.50 to a high of 5.00 Monday afternoon 092209. Today the stock is trading at 4.67. Currently, they are recruiting patients for 3 Clinical Trials for their pipeline medications. Here is their ClinicalTrials.gov link: Cytokinetics Trials


Cytokinetics recently announced favorable Phase II data from last week for its Heart Failure medication. Here is the presss release from their website.

Cytokinetics Presents Phase IIa Clinical Trials Data on Omecamtiv Mecarbil at the 2009 Heart Failure Society of America Annual Meeting

Sept 18, 2009 brought upcoming news from discoveries made with their R & D pipeline for cytobiology medications. Biochemistry speaking this is ground breaking and developing research that has huge promise both to the patients and also to investors. Cytokinetics Highlights Progress and Expansion of Development Programs at Today’s Research and Development Day

“As we will elaborate today, Cytokinetics has leveraged our expertise focused to cytoskeletal biology and the pharmacology of muscle function to construct a preclinical and clinical pipeline of novel compounds directed to activating or inhibiting muscle contractility,” stated Robert I. Blum, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cytokinetics. “We believe that our productive research and development activities have yielded a pipeline of multiple compounds that are specifically engineered to potentially address key liabilities of existing drugs. In particular, we believe each of our clinical programs focused to cardiac and skeletal muscle may have the potential to define new paradigms for the treatment of severe diseases that are increasingly amongst the major contributors to the mortality, morbidities and excessive costs associated with aging demographics.”


I feel that they have some promise for putting multiple drug candidates into Phase III clinical trials in the next few years. This is great news as they are true biochemical drug researchers with high expectations. For their most recent Clinical Trial they have partnered with Amgen. Currently, Amgen does own some royalty rights to this upcoming trial for with respects to Omecamtiv mecarbil (CK-1827452)

Amgen Elects Option on Cardiac Drug, Improving Cytokinetics' Strong Cash Position

“Recently completed clinical trials of CK-1827452 suggest that this drug candidate may represent a major step forward in the treatment of heart failure,” stated Cytokinetics’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Robert I. Blum. “We are looking forward to now expanding our collaboration with Amgen to provide for the advancement of this novel cardiac muscle activator into studies that are designed to further assess the clinical benefit of this exciting compound. Amgen has consistently demonstrated a successful track record with first-in-class mechanism compounds and we are pleased to be moving forward together.”

Omecamtiv mecarbil (CK-1827452) is a novel, small-molecule, direct activator of cardiac myosin, the motor protein that causes cardiac contraction.

Additionally, in past partnership with GSK they have the breast cancer drug, ispinesib, which is completing Phase I/II testing.
Cytokinetics Presents Clinical Data Relating to Ispinesib in Patients With Metastatic Breast Cancer at the 2009 Annual.

Unfortunately, some of this research was left behind. So we will be waiting to see what direction the company might be taking with future clinical trials in order. But maybe the Amgen deal will bring success back to the company and they can continue this other trial. Pre-Clinical Marketization was figured at 600M with 75M in upfront realization. This article is from September 22, 2008 which discusses how Cytokinetics was refocusing their strategy and Leaving cancer behind. By their recruitment data on clinical trials they have obviously moved past this stage that they were in a year ago and are poised to continue with past success. Their stock may go down for a nice trade with a limit order to buy at a lower price.

Here is their Reuter's Profile.

Disclosure: Long CYTK