Feuerstein's Biotech Mailbag

Thanks for coming back to another edition of the Biotech Mailbag. Your comments and questions are most appreciated, so please keep them coming. You can email me here.

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Chris M. is looking at other companies developing cancer vaccines, and he's stumbled across Antigenics(AGEN Quote). "Volume is up and everything looks good, but going through its history -- yuck. What do you think?"

Yuck is right.

That pretty much sums up my view of Antigenics. Some investors are giving the company another look because of Dendreon(DNDN Quote). Antigenics' stock has gone from trading for less than $2 before Dendreon's Food and Drug Administration advisory panel to more than $4 soon after. (Antigenics shares closed Friday down 12 cents at $3.26.)

Look, I understand the desire to find the next cancer vaccine rocket ship, but Antigenics' drug Oncophage has barely risen off the launch pad, let alone made it to orbit.

Two phase III trials of Oncophage -- one in melanoma and another in kidney cancer -- failed. The company has attempted to cull positive data from various subgroups of patients in these trials, but the results, while positive, are not very reliable because all the work was done retrospectively.

It's worth noting, too, that Oncophage has had manufacturing problems. In the melanoma trial, for instance, there was a 30% manufacturing failure rate.