While the candidate was effective in Phase III results, Point’s stock price fell following the announcement.
Pictured: an Eli Lilly building in San Diego/iStock, JHVE Photo
Point Biopharma and Lantheus Holdings revealed topline results on Monday for their radioligand therapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have progressed after treatment with an androgen receptor pathway inhibitor, showing encouraging results. But Point’s stock price nevertheless dropped following the announcement.
The trial, known as SPLASH, had met the primary endpoint, showing progression-free survival of 9.5 months in those treated with the drug Lu-PNT2002 compared to 6.0 months for patients in the control group, who were treated with an androgen receptor pathway inhibitor (ARPI). The results showed a 29% reduction in the risk of radiographic progression or death, with a p-value of p=0.0088. Point and Lantheus noted that the results for overall survival were “immature,” but the hazard ratio was 1.11.
The results did not impress Wall Street, however, as Point saw an 11% drop in its share price. An analyst from Leerink told Endpoints News that the progression-free survival results were “inferior” to Novartis’s radiopharmaceutical Pluvicto, which the FDA approved to treat prostate cancer in March of last year. Nonetheless, Point touted the drug and the trial.
“The success of 177Lu-PNT2002 in this trial demonstrates the value of treating patients with radioligand therapy at this stage of the disease continuum. With only four treatment administrations over 32 weeks, this regimen provides reduced treatment intensity compared to the control arm while also delaying disease progression with lower toxicity,” Neil Fleshner, co-founder and CMO at Point, said in Monday’s statement.
The drug’s safety was “favorable,” with only 1.9% of patients stopping the trial due to adverse events, according to the statement.
“There is an urgent unmet need for targeted treatment options for mCRPC patients, particularly for those whose cancer has progressed on androgen receptor pathway inhibitors,” Kim Chi, the trial’s principal investigator and Medical Oncologist at BC Cancer, said in the statement. “The SPLASH study results demonstrate that 177Lu-PNT2002 is well-tolerated and has the potential to play an important role in addressing those needs for patients with chemotherapy-naïve mCRPC.”
Eli Lilly announced in a news release on Monday that it has extended an offer to acquire all of Point’s shares of common stock for $12.50 per share, or an estimated $1.4 billion. The deal, first announced in October, was supposed to close on December 15, but the offer has been extended to December 22.
In Lilly’s October announcement about acquiring Point, Jacob Van Naarden, the president of Lilly’s oncology, stated that the company was “excited” about the use of radiopharmaceuticals and sees Point’s acquisition as a starting point for an “investment in developing multiple meaningful radioligand medicines for hard-to-treat cancers.”
Tyler Patchen is a staff writer at BioSpace. You can reach him at tyler.patchen@biospace.com. Follow him on LinkedIn.
