Oncothyreon Advances Cancer Drug

Seattle-based Oncothyreon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ONTY]]) said it has decided to advance an experimental cancer drug into mid-stage clinical trials in the first half of 2010. The company plans to run two or more trials of PX-866, an oral pill made to block the PI3 Kinase pathway implicated in cancer cell growth. This shift in priorities, from cancer vaccines to cancer drugs which I profiled back in March, was applauded by analyst Simos Simeonidis at Rodman & Renshaw. “The company has not only been transformed into a well-run and very lean operation, but has literally been brought back from the brink of disaster,” Simeonidis wrote in a note to clients.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.