Positive skin cancer drug data boosts Roche

Roche’s new cancer drug vismodegib could help patients with a potentially fatal skin cancer type, positive mid-stage trial results showed, going some way to lift confidence in the drugmaker after a rough 2010.

Roche is struggling to find its feet again after a series of product setbacks last year unsettled investors and lopped nearly one fifth from the value of the company.

But the group has had a better run of late and this latest success, albeit a fairly small one, should help to boost sentiment and remind investors of Roche’s strength in oncology.

At 1257 GMT (8:57 p.m. EST), Roche stock was trading 1.4 percent higher, outperforming a 0.8 percent rise in the European healthcare sector index and cross-town rival Novartis.

Roche, the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs, said vismodegib shrank tumors in patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma, meeting the primary endpoint of a Phase II trial.

The group, which is developing the drug with Curis, said the most common adverse side effects included muscle spasms, hair loss, weight loss, fatigue and nausea.

Analysts at Deutsche Bank estimate the total market is unlikely to exceed $500 million and see peak sales of 300 million Swiss francs ($331.7 million).

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most common type of skin cancer in Europe, Australia and the United States and there are about 2 million cases worldwide. It is generally thought to be curable when the cancer is restricted to a small area of the skin.

But in a small group of people, the cancer can advance further into the skin, bones or other tissues if it is left untreated or does not respond to treatment.

BCC can advance or spread to other parts of the body in a small proportion of patients, estimated at less than 1 percent, and become difficult to treat or life-threatening, Roche said.

The drug is a so-called Hedgehog Pathway Inhibitor. The Hedgehog signaling pathway is important in regulating proper growth and development in the early stages of life and then becomes less active in adults.

Mutations in the pathway that reactivate Hedgehog signaling are seen in several different types of cancer and abnormal signaling in the pathway is implicated in the majority of BCC cases, Roche said.

(Reporting by Katie Reid; Editing by David Cowell)

###

(Reuters)