Endocyte Inc. (NASDAQ: ECYT) is trading like the company is being acquired. This is proof that any biotech with great cancer drug news can run, regardless of market conditions. It and Merck & Co. (NYSE: MRK) have announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has given a positive opinion for conditional marketing approval of Vynfinit (or vintafolide) and companion imaging components, imaging agent Folcepri (or etarfolatide), and Neocepri (intravenous folic acid), for the treatment of adult patients with ovarian cancer in combination with pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD).
The type of ovarian cancer is folate receptor-positive, platinum-resistant, ovarian cancer. Endocyte shares have doubled on the news, giving it a market cap of just over $1 billion.
Vintafolide was targeted to be used in combination with PLD for the treatment of adult patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, specifically in those patients who expressed the folate receptor on all target lesions.
Endocyte also separately announced that results from its Phase 2b TARGET trial. The results showed that the study met the primary endpoint for the combination of vintafolide and docetaxel in folate receptor-positive recurrent non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.
Endocyte shares were up 101% at $29.45 after 30 minutes of trading on Friday, on more than 6.5 million shares, about 12 times an average daily volume. Merck shares were up only 0.4%, but that may be due to the notion that its market cap is $164 billion.
The consensus analyst price target on Endocyte before this move was close to $20, versus a $14.64 close on Thursday. It is safe to assume that price targets will be lifted in the next day or two.
Be advised that the Thomson Reuters consensus revenue targets are $73.1 million for 2014 and almost $38 million for 2015. Either this is not baked into the revenue projections yet, or this is a game-changer for potential revenues if approved.
With a $1 billion market cap, one still has to wonder if Endocyte is among the next wave of potential biotech buyouts.
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