Cancer Drugmakers Surged As Industry Meet Fuels Investor Interest

On Monday, premarket trading saw a sharp increase in the shares of several cancer drug companies after the companies presented encouraging clinical trial results for their treatments at a Chicago industry conference. The biggest sector gainers following presentations at the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting included Day One Bio, Immunogen Inc., and Evaxion Biotech A/S. Day One's premarket share price increased 21.3% to $16.54 after a mid-stage study found that its experimental treatment for a specific type of brain tumour significantly reduced tumour size in 67% of patients with a patient age range of over 6 months to 25 years.

In a late-stage study, an experimental drug developed by ImmunoGen Inc. to treat a specific type of ovarian cancer demonstrated a 35% reduction in the risk of tumour progression or death when compared to chemotherapy. Shares of the pharmaceutical company increased 7.7% to $15.48. After the smaller drug maker said its vaccine to prevent a specific type of skin cancer met safety goals in an early-stage study, shares of Evaxion shot up nearly 40% to $2.03. Arcus Biosciences Inc., on the other hand, experienced a decline of 3.7% as a result of updated data on its experimental drug for the treatment of a specific type of lung cancer that revealed a lesser benefit in reducing the risk of disease progression than earlier data from a mid-stage trial.

The double combination of experimental drugs, domvanalimab and zimberelimab, controlled disease progression for 9.3 months, compared to the 12 months that Arcus reported in December. The company is developing the drug with Gilead Sciences Inc.