ASCO Winner: Biovest May Be The Next Dendreon (BVTI, ABPIQ, DNDN)

One of the largest percentage gainers with data released at the American Society of Clinical Oncology was none other than an OTC micro-cap company called Biovest International, Inc. (OTC: BVTI).  Technically, this is a majority owned subsidiary company of Accentia Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (OTC: ABPIQ).  The company has nothing to do with Dendreon Corp. (NASDAQ: DNDN) in the business, but the targets of the potential products use the body’s own immune system to fight tumors strike a similar interest.  And this weekend’s data released was far better than most were expecting from a company of this size.

We also covered this one in our weekly “10 Stocks under $10” Newsletter as one with a big win under its belt.  The percentages of success were that large.  As noted:

At this weekend’s American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, the company said its eight year Phase III clinical study has shown that BiovaxID, its personalized therapeutic anti-cancer vaccine, significantly prolonged disease-free survival in follicular non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The interesting notion here is sort of similar to Dendreon in that this uses the body’s own defense system in fighting tumors by stimulating and recruiting the patient’s own immune system to destroy the cancer cells and potentially prevent recurrence. The company noted that some 95% of patients showed significant T-cell activity against their lymphoma, and it noted that some 75% of patients showed a humoral immune response. The time here is almost hard to imagine, but the company noted that with a median follow-up of 9.2 years, 45% of patients remained in continuous first complete remission with a median disease-free survival of 8 years. While we hate micro-caps and OTC stocks, these claims are actually more than substantial.

Again, we do not want to confuse this with Dendreon other than the actual process of using a body’s immune system to destroy or stunt cancer cells.  The other similarity is the potential rise that could become a game changing treatment.  It was just impossible to not see the parallels here in this case.  In some respect, the news from Biovest could even be larger if everything comes to fruition.

Biovest International (BVTI) shares are up 57% today at $0.77, but shares had been up well over $1.00 in early morning trading.

Jon C. Ogg
June 1, 2009