ND-LBC

Introgen Therapeutics: Advexin's P-Value Borg - Resistance is Futile

I agree. And I see that the short interest has gone up from 9.3% a couple weeks ago to 12.08% today.

Introgen Therapeutics: Advexin's P-Value Borg - Resistance is Futile

I don't know about that, but his argument is built around premises and numbers that appear to be wrong.

A bulletpoint at the beginning of the Introgen press release dated 5/28/08 states:

-- Primary and Secondary Efficacy Endpoints Successfully Met, Study Objective Achieved

The first line of the press release speaks to the survival endpoint:

"Introgen Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:INGN) today announced that ADVEXIN(R) (p53 tumor suppressor therapy) significantly increased survival in end-stage head and neck cancer patients with prospectively identified p53 favorable profiles (7.2 vs. 2.7 months; p less than 0.0001)."

The first line of the second paragraph of the press release notes a positive tumor response:

"The increase in survival and tumor response, among the p53 favorable profile patients, highlights the value of developing 'targeted' therapy for patients with recurrent, refractory head and neck cancer," said Jack A. Roth, MD..."

According the the MD Anderson News Release dated 5/28/08:

Patients with a favorable p53 profile who received Advexin® had a median survival of 7.2 months, compared with 2.7 months for those whose tumor expressed high levels of mutant p53 before treatment. Patients with this unfavorable profile were better off taking the chemotherapy drug methotrexate, resulting in median survival of 5.9 months.

Further, I think the author of the above blog article misinterprets the quote from the same news release:

""The important finding is that patients who benefit from treatment can be identified with the p53 biomarker. The biomarker will enable physicians to personalize treatment," said Roth, who also directs M. D. Anderson's W.M. Keck Center for Innovative Cancer Therapies."

A personalized therapy is a major breakthrough in cancer therapy. Introgen and the physicians at MD Anderson view this as a major benefit and selling point, on top of (not in place of) the positive tumor response and increase in survival over methotrexate. I believe this accounts for the strong emphasis given to Advexin as a targeted and personalized therapy in the press releases. As researchers, they are excited about this breakthrough.

The author of the blog argues that Introgen has changed the endpoints, which it hasn't and that Advexin failed to meet these endpoints, but it did as shown by the data.

I wonder why the author of the blog went to so much effort to misrepesent the data? A large short position?