Gilead Sciences Yescarta for Relapsed or Refractory Indolent Follicula Lymphoma If Kite Pharma - a Gilead Sciences (GILD) company, had been acquired by any firm other than Gilead the stock would have gained at least 20% because of the news announced a few days ago. Kite Pharma announced outstanding Yescarta® (axicabtagene ciloleucel) results from the pivotal ZUMA-5 trial. At a minimum follow . . . This …

Humanigen Product Lenzilumab Combination with CAR-T At the recommended Phase 2 dose, lenzilumab in combination with CAR-T demonstrated a 100% objective response rate and no severe cytokine release syndrome or severe neurotoxicity Lenzilumab reduced IL-6, CRP, ferritin, MCP-1, IL-8, and IP-10 (CXCL-10) among others Humanigen now plans to conduct a randomized, potentially registrational, Phase 2 study with lenzilumab combined with all commercially available CD19 CAR-T …

Gilead Sciences Company, Kite Pharma, News Kite Pharma, a Gilead Company (GILD), announced that the European Commission has granted conditional marketing authorization for Tecartus™ (autologous, anti-CD19-transduced CD3+ cells; formerly KTE-X19). Tecartus is a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for adult patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy including a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor. Conditional …

The EMA validated the MAA for the Gilead Investigational CAR T Product for MCL Kite, a Gilead (GILD) company, announced that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has validated the Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) of the investigational CAR T product KTE-X19 for adult patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL

Gilead’s CAR-T Product Yescarta Results Kite, a Gilead (GILD) subsidiary, announced new data from the ZUMA-1 trial of the CAR T Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel) in adult patients with refractory large B-cell lymphoma. The data from the pivotal phase 2 study demonstrate that patients with refractory large B cell lymphoma were alive three years following a single infusion of Gilead’s CAR T immuno-oncology product Yescarta.  Analysis from …

Kite, a Gilead Company, and Sangamo Therapeutics Announce Collaboration to Develop Next-Generation Engineered Cell Therapies for Cancer Kite, a Gilead (GILD) company, and Sangamo Therapeutics (SGMO) announced a worldwide collaboration agreement for using Sangamo’s zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology platform for the development of next-generation ex vivo cell therapies in oncology. Kite will use Sangamo’s ZFN technology to modify genes to develop next-generation cell therapies for autologous and allogeneic use in treating …

Prohost Letter #417 Private Lessons - These lessons are overdue and we had to do this homework before we go into further evaluations of our picks and introduction of new companies as we promised in the past issue. We believe that the Prohost readers, the fans and the critics should know how and why we pick our biotech stocks . . . This content is …

The Week in Review #10 NO CONSPIRACY THEORIES - But this is what’s happening - In the past issue of The Week in Review, we wrote about the irrational pattern of selling the biotech stocks during the announcement of the quarterly results and how some investors are taking advantage of this pattern to sell their stocks before the quarterly results . . . This content …

The Week in Review #7 A lot more happened in the past week regarding improving the treatment of cancer and of other devastating diseases. This issue contains discoveries that aim at improving breakthrough immuno-­oncology treatment outcomes. Here are some of the breakthrough technologies and treatments that might improve, by-­far, the management of cancer . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to …

In the news, the FDA has placed a clinical hold on two phase 1 trials of Cellectis’ (CLLS) off- the-shelf product UCART123 after the death of a 78-year old patient. Cellectis is working with the FDA towards finding ways that help mitigate the risks expected to have caused the fatality. We experienced deaths with other CAR T products with the cytokine release syndrome on the …

Coming Soon... The Week in Review #3 Gilead Acquisition - Rallying by Association - Improving on Cancer Treatments...

The answer is, indeed, Gilead (GILD) and its CAR T drug approval will be for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). This is true, as in May, the FDA has accepted for priority review Kite Pharma’s Biologics License Application (BLA) for its genetically engineered Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell (CAR-T) product axicabtagene ciloleucel. The submission follows positive data demonstrated after a single infusion of axicabtagene ciloleucel in the …

When what you predicted, preached, and wished are realized, this is good news. Today’s news is bringing all Prohost predictions into realization, Yes, Kite (KITE) is on its way to be acquired by Gilead (GILD) and yes both stocks have rallied and yes Juno (JUNO) is also rallying on the Kite’s news because both firms are pioneers in the CAR-T Immunotherapy technology and drugs. Rallied …

THE WEEK IN REVIEW Wall Street As we said in yesterday’s article posted under Today’s Highlights, stocks can plummet at any time, regardless of whether they have the best or the worst grades for their financial or accomplishments reports. Stocks can falter (yet quickly recover) for various reasons, as their prices are decided by thousands of stocks exchanging hands between sellers who need to sell …

Prohost Letter #412 Part 3 GLIOBLASTOMA - Is There Hope? Senator John McCain was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, glioblastoma – the most common and aggressive form of brain cancer. The cancer is so aggressive that most surgeries did not provide survival. This brain cancer affects around 3 people out of 100,000 in the U.S., with men more than women and whites more than other …

IMPROVING ON CAR IMMUNOTHERAPY APPROACH  When we stated that chimeric antigen receptor CAR immunotherapy process was created to remain and improve, we aimed at demonstrating our conviction that the CAR approach will eventually be improved and become the gold standard for the treatment of many cancers. We observed that many research and medical institutions are using all advanced information, state-of-the-art techniques and technologies in order …

A BIG YES for Novartis CAR-T product has come from the  Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee. The committee recommended FDA approval for Novartis product CTL019 for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The Vote: The panel voted 10-0 in favor of approval. Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, (CAR-T- Cell therapy) is an immunotherapy that enables the immune system T cells to seek, reach and attack cancer …

Arena (ARNA) announced positive Phase 2 clinical trial results for its drug ralinepag1 for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). In the 61-patient study, the primary efficacy analysis demonstrated a statistically significant absolute change from baseline in pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) compared to placebo. Ralinepag also demonstrated numerical improvement in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD). Additionally, adverse events observed in the study were consistent with other prostacyclin treatments for …

IMPRESSIVE RESULTS?  Bellicum Pharmaceuticals’ (BLCM) drug BPX-501 is described as a safe and effective product that can offer children with cancer and other serious diseases the opportunity to beat their intractable sicknesses. The drug enables the patients who are in desperate need for a bone marrow stem cell transplant to use unmatched donors’ stem cells through lowering their adverse effects. The most recent clinical trial …

Prohost Letter #410 JUNE PDUFA DAYS This month, the FDA will decide on the approvals of drugs belonging to companies that Prohost has picked for investment. Usually, granting approvals rallies the stocks of the drugs’ developing firms. Sending Complete Response Letters for demands that might delay approvals would cut a substantial percentage of the stocks’ values, while rejections would cause the stocks to falter. Let’s …