GTOP is in big trouble...
Genitope halts MyVax work, examines future
San Francisco Business Times - by Ron Leuty
Genitope Corp. said it will suspend work on its cornerstone personalized cancer vaccine, MyVax, for follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
The announcement late Monday came after a meeting between the Fremont company (NASDAQ: GTOP) and the Food and Drug Administration. The agency told Genitope that one or more additional Phase III trials would be required.
The company said Monday it is evaluating alternatives for MyVax and is evaluating its financial position and plans for continued operations.
Genitope also said it will postpone a shareholder meeting that was scheduled for Tuesday -- to consider authorizing the sale of 60 million more shares, to about 125 million shares -- and instead will hold the meeting Friday.
Genitope, which analysts have said is running critically short of cash, would need to raise millions of dollars more, but its stock has tanked since it said in December that MyVax failed to meet the main reason for its Phase III trial.
Chairman and CEO Dan Denney Jr. at the time emphasized that MyVax worked on a subset of patients and sought FDA approval based on that data.
MyVax uses a vaccine derived from a tumor to stimulate a patient's own immune system to control cancer.
Genitope has seen its stock slide from $4.03 a share on Dec. 20 -- the day it announced MyVax's failure -- to 54 cents at Monday's opening.
The stock closed Monday at 58 cents per share, but was down 25 cents in after-hours trading in the late afternoon.
"We are disappointed that we will not be able to make MyVax personalized immunotherapy available to patients with follicular non-Hodgkin's lymphoma," Denney said. "We firmly believe that MyVax personalized immunothterapy has the potential to safely induce long-term remissions, possibly including lifelong remissions."
Just my opinion...
