Shares of Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ: SGEN) are up 12% at 12:05 p.m. EDT after the biotech presented a pair of positive clinical trial results at the 2019 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress.
In a phase 2 clinical trial testing Seattle Genetics' tucatinib with Roche's Herceptin in patients with a specific type of late-stage colorectal cancer, over half of the 23 patients responded to the therapy. The combination delayed the progression of the tumor and/or death by 8.1 months. Patients lived for a median of 18.7 months.
There wasn't a control arm to compare the data with, but these are heavily treated patients who have already failed two other approved treatments, so a 52.2% response rate is pretty impressive.