The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting will be closely watched by analysts and investors alike. There is no doubt that favorable data presented at the event will advance a company's stock valuation significantly. Equally, candidate cancer therapies that do not live up to expectations will see their developers face the ire of investors.
Shares of Allogene Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:ALLO) leapt 36% higher to $42.12 on Thursday after limited data from a small number of relapsed/refractory (r/r) non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients showed a combination of the company's anti-CD19 allogeneic CAR T candidate, ALLO-501, and an anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody, ALLO-647, met with an overall response rate of 78%.
Allogene Therapeutics Inc., a South San Francisco-based company developing off-the-shelf allogeneic T-cell therapies for cancer, is taking a 25% stake in Notch Therapeutics Inc., paying the Canadian startup $10 million up front in an exclusive deal to research and develop new induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC)-based CAR T therapies. The partners will initially focus on developing next-generation treatments for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), leukemia and multiple myeloma.