Biotech Implosion: Threshold Pharmaceuticals’ Trial Fails on Pancreatic Cancer (THLD)

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 26, 4:56PM EST

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Biotech Implosion: Threshold Pharmaceuticals (THLD)

Threshold Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (THLD-NASDAQ) came clean after the close and announced that a Phase 3 trial of glufosfamide did not show a statistically significant improvement in overall survival in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients compared to best supportive care who had relapsed after gemcitabine chemotherapy. While the overall survival in patients in the glufosfamide arm was 18% higher compared to those who received best supportive care alone, the result was not statistically significant.

The company will continue to develop 2-deoxyglucose as well as our pre-clinical candidate HAP-302. The Company also continues to expect its cash to last at least through the middle of 2008. So, now we know THLD’s real threshold. Ouch. This is sad that this disease is still so pervasive and that the survival rates are so low, and now a cure doesn’t seem any closer.

THLD is trading down more than 50% at $1.55 in after-hours trading; its 52-week high is $16.98.

Jon C. Ogg
February 26, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.