GenVec Surges on Trial Results

Drug developer GenVec's (GNVC) shares gained more than 30% after the company announced positive early results from a trial on its proposed pancreatic cancer drug.
Based on results from the first 51 patients studied, overall survival rates increased 42.5% when GenVec's drug TNFerade was added to a standard treatment for the disease. At one year, the survival rate was 70.5% in the group receiving the drug vs. 28% in the group receiving standard care alone.

The analysis was conducted as an initial component of a planned interim review of trial data by an independent data safety monitoring board, the company says.

"While the interim data is early, we are encouraged by the positive statistical trend," said Dr. Mark Thornton, GenVec's senior vice president of product development.

Shares gained 60 cents to $2.46 Tuesday morning.

TNF alpha is a type I cytokine that is secreted by macrophages and lymphocytes that supports the activation of cytotoxic T cells. These cells (with other granulocytes)then mount an attack on the tumor cells themselves, in order to kill it. Target cancer cells have receptors to TNF, such that when it binds to the receptor, it triggers apoptosis (cell suicide) of cancer cells.
By introcucing this directly into tumor cells and tumors, it remarkable. I can imagine that this will be a boon to early tumor treatment to shrink it then following up with standard methods to finish it off. I say this because it's long been hard to get human genes to stably express in humans. We can get transient expression with viral vectors, but stable expression is difficult because you need a ecotropic virus.