First-line pancreatic cancer readout sinks Halozyme shares

Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:HALO) slipped $1.76 to $17.98 Wednesday after reporting that PEGPH20 plus modified FOLFIRINOX chemotherapy led to worse overall survival (OS) compared with chemotherapy alone in the Phase Ib/II S1313 trial to treat previously untreated metastatic pancreatic cancer. The data were released in an abstract ahead of this week's American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco.

In 111 evaluable patients with newly diagnosed metastatic pancreatic cancer, 3 μg/kg PEGPH20 every two weeks plus modified FOLFIRINOX led to a median OS, the primary endpoint, of 7.6 months vs. 15.1 months for modified FOLFIRINOX alone (HR=0.48)...