Biotech Implosion: Allos Therapeutics (ALTH)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Allos Therapeutics, Inc. (ALTH-NASDAQ) is indicated down almost 20% in thin pre-market trading after it announced that top line results from ENRICH, the Company’s pivotal Phase III study of EFAPROXYN plus whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) in women with brain metastases originating from breast cancer. The study failed to achieve its primary endpoint of demonstrating a statistically significant improvement in overall survival in patients receiving EFAPROXYN plus WBRT, compared to patients receiving WBRT alone.  All secondary efficacy endpoints also failed to achieve statistical significance.

Based on these results, Allos intends to discontinue the development of EFAPROXYN and focus on advancing the development of PDX (Pralatrexate), its novel antifolate currently under evaluation in a pivotal Phase 2 study in patients with relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL).

Allos has essentially no revenues and as of last quarter it had $75.8 million in cash and short term investments and about $6 million in total liabilities.  Before today’s drop the market cap was $370 million.  The good news is that the company is still in the running here with another product candidate and that it still has plenty of cash.  The bad news is that it is now  in a spot where it has only the hope of a one-hit wonder potentially and is still worth more than 4-times its liquidity after just blowing a Phase III trial.

Jon C. Ogg
June 19, 2007

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

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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.

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