Biotech Calendar: Key Clinical Trial Dates

I'm back with the third list of clinical trials covering experimental drugs currently undergoing testing in phase II and phase III studies by drug and biotech companies.

This installment, like the previous two, covers clinical trials with results expected in 2009. You can find part one here and part two here.

These lists also serve as companions to the column I posted on June 3.

Unlike U.S. Food and Drug Administration drug approvals, which are more precisely timed, the release dates for data from clinical trials is a bit fuzzier, so the timelines here are culled from company guidance when possible.

I put this calendar together using company reports, sell-side research and the BioMedTracker service from Sagient Research, a subscription-based tool for keeping track of biotech and drug catalysts.

Before I get to the part three of the clinical trials calendar, I want to review a few of the clinical trials from the previous installments that have reported results already.

On June 24, Jazz Pharmaceuticals(JAZZ Quote) announced positive results from the second of two phase III studies of JZP-6 in fibromyalgia. Jazz shares, trading at $4.30 at the time of the announcement, rose to an intraday high of $5.27 the following day. The stock was recently trading at $3.79.

Celgene(CELG Quote) posted positive results from a phase II study of apremilast in patients with psoriatic arthritis on June 15. As a large-cap biotech, Celgene's stock price is probably not as sensitive to phase II data, although shares have jumped from $42 to $48.33 since the apremilast data were released.