Bavarian Nordic slumps, as prostate cancer vaccine fails in Phase III

The shares of Danish biotech firm Bavarian Nordic (OMX: BAVA) were down 50% at 220 Danish kroner on Friday, after it announced that an independent Data Monitoring Committee (DMCB) has determined, based on a pre-planned interim analysis, that continuation of the Phase III PROSPECT study of Prostvac (rilimogene galvacirepvec/rilimogene glafolivec) in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) is futile. The stock made a partial recovery to 242.00 kroner this morning.

"We are extremely disappointed for patients that this study of Prostvac as monotherapy was not successful," said Paul Chaplin, president and chief executive of Bavarian Nordic. "While this is certainly not the desired outcome, we remain steadfast believers in the power of combination treatments, including immunotherapies, to transform the future of cancer therapies," he added.

Mr Chaplin said he not currently expect the results to affect the company's other cancer projects. "As I sit here today, no. But of course we need to see the data from the Prostvac study and we need to do a deep dive and make an assessment and learn lessons from it," he said.