Vaccine For Pancreatic Cancer Fails Patients

The vaccine that promises to help in the survival of pancreatic cancer patients is doing the exact opposite. This cancer drug could even reportedly cause harmful effects to patients.

The Street said the vaccine by NewLink Genetics NLNK is not as effective as the standard therapy for the illness. This was what the results of a phase III study revealed on Monday.

Called the algenpantucel-L, this new vaccine targets the immune system so that it can detect and kill cancer cells inside a person's body. However, the promise of the drug did not happen in a test on patients.

The same report said the survival of patients using the NewLink vaccine was only 27.3 months while the standard therapy has a higher one at 30.4 months. Researchers are now sure that the study was not able to achieve its goal and could even have the potential of harming patients.

Zero Value

According to Fierce Biotech, the performance of the vaccine will surely lead investors to give it a zero value, as well as the entire company's HyperAcute Platform. "We are deeply disappointed for patients that the Impress Phase III study was not successful," NewLink Genetics CMO Nicholas Vahanian said.

"Given these results, we are evaluating the future of the HyperAcute platform," Vahanian added after congratulating all the people involved in the study and testing of algenpantucel-L. "We remain committed to achieving our mission of developing immunotherapies to bring patients with cancer better treatment options."

Incurable cancer

Reuters added that the vaccine could have been a big help to pancreatic cancer which remains incurable up to this point. The American Cancer Society said that more than 53,000 residents could be diagnosed with the disease this year.

The same report also highlighted that the failure of the vaccine has greatly affected the shares of the company when its shares plummeting about 33 percent. On Monday, the company's stock had more than "halved in value" for the year.