A deluge of fresh cancer research data hits at five pm ET: Here`s what to witness

On the Wednesday evening halfway through the month of May each year, investors, analysts and biotech reporters all sit glued to their computer screens.

At five p.m. ET on the dot, the American Society of Clinical Oncology will release thousands of data sets ahead of its annual conference on June 2-6 in Chicago.

This year it’s about Five,020.

The “abstract drop” exposes the progress being made in attacking cancer and, inevitably, moves stocks both large and puny. Here’s what to keep an eye on Wednesday evening and into Thursday:

Immunotherapy

The usual suspects in fresh drugs that corset the immune system to better target cancer are Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and Roche. They’ve developed medicines known as PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors, which essentially expose cancer cells to our bods’ natural defense systems.

They’ll each have their own updates, but analysts are also keeping a close eye this year on Incyte, which is developing a medicine that takes a different immunotherapy treatment, called an IDO1 inhibitor. The concept is similar: stopping cancer’s capability to evade the immune system. And Incyte is testing its drug, called epacadostat , in combination with both Bristol’s Opdivo and Merck’s Keytruda to see how and where it works best.

According to Leerink Research, epacadostat reflects $32 a share, or about twenty eight percent, of Incyte’s valuation. Analyst Michael Schmidt says the stock could sway up or down ten to fifteen percent based on whether the data meet the Street’s expectations.

NewLink Genetics, Bristol-Myers and Roche’s Genentech also have IDO inhibitors in the pipeline.

A subset of immunotherapy, CAR-T stands for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, and it’s the concentrate of a handful of companies’ development programs. It involves actually removing a patient’s blood cells, genetically modifying them to better identify and attack cancer, multiplying them and then re-infusing them.

Novartis, Kite Pharma, Juno Therapeutics and Bluebird Bio are among companies working in the technology, which has produced dramatic results for patients for whom other therapies have stopped working, but has also turned up serious safety issues, including a number of deaths in clinical trials.

Analysts are specifically watching Bluebird and Juno in the CAR-T space; Bluebird for updates in its program targeting numerous myeloma, and Juno for its program in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to research from JPMorgan. Both companies are partnered with Celgene.

All the Rest

Analysts are also closely watching Eli Lilly for an update on its experimental breast cancer drug, abemaciclib ; biotech company Epizyme, for an update on its experimental medicine tazemetostat targeting certain genetically defined solid tumors; and another immunotherapy agent from drugmaker Nektar, NKTR-214.

Some of the most anticipated data may be exposed in more detail at the actual conference in a few weeks rather than Wednesday evening.

The question for the market this week, according to Leerink’s Geoff Porges, “is whether investors will go after the usual rule and buy the abstracts and sell the meeting.”

Deluge of cancer research data to come Wednesday: Here’s what to see

A deluge of fresh cancer research data hits at five pm ET: Here`s what to witness

On the Wednesday evening halfway through the month of May each year, investors, analysts and biotech reporters all sit glued to their computer screens.

At five p.m. ET on the dot, the American Society of Clinical Oncology will release thousands of data sets ahead of its annual conference on June 2-6 in Chicago.

This year it’s about Five,020.

The “abstract drop” exposes the progress being made in attacking cancer and, inevitably, moves stocks both large and petite. Here’s what to keep an eye on Wednesday evening and into Thursday:

Immunotherapy

The usual suspects in fresh drugs that corset the immune system to better target cancer are Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and Roche. They’ve developed medicines known as PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors, which essentially expose cancer cells to our figures’ natural defense systems.

They’ll each have their own updates, but analysts are also keeping a close eye this year on Incyte, which is developing a medicine that takes a different immunotherapy treatment, called an IDO1 inhibitor. The concept is similar: stopping cancer’s capability to evade the immune system. And Incyte is testing its drug, called epacadostat , in combination with both Bristol’s Opdivo and Merck’s Keytruda to see how and where it works best.

According to Leerink Research, epacadostat reflects $32 a share, or about twenty eight percent, of Incyte’s valuation. Analyst Michael Schmidt says the stock could sway up or down ten to fifteen percent based on whether the data meet the Street’s expectations.

NewLink Genetics, Bristol-Myers and Roche’s Genentech also have IDO inhibitors in the pipeline.

A subset of immunotherapy, CAR-T stands for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, and it’s the concentrate of a handful of companies’ development programs. It involves actually removing a patient’s blood cells, genetically modifying them to better identify and attack cancer, multiplying them and then re-infusing them.

Novartis, Kite Pharma, Juno Therapeutics and Bluebird Bio are among companies working in the technology, which has produced dramatic results for patients for whom other therapies have stopped working, but has also turned up serious safety issues, including a number of deaths in clinical trials.

Analysts are specifically watching Bluebird and Juno in the CAR-T space; Bluebird for updates in its program targeting numerous myeloma, and Juno for its program in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to research from JPMorgan. Both companies are partnered with Celgene.

All the Rest

Analysts are also closely watching Eli Lilly for an update on its experimental breast cancer drug, abemaciclib ; biotech company Epizyme, for an update on its experimental medicine tazemetostat targeting certain genetically defined solid tumors; and another immunotherapy agent from drugmaker Nektar, NKTR-214.

Some of the most anticipated data may be exposed in more detail at the actual conference in a few weeks rather than Wednesday evening.

The question for the market this week, according to Leerink’s Geoff Porges, “is whether investors will go after the usual rule and buy the abstracts and sell the meeting.”

Related movie: