Genta down on Genasense news
On Tuesday, GNTA was down $1.30 (50%) to $1.30 on 28.9 million shares following Monday's after-market announcement that sanofi-aventis (Euronext:SAN; SNY) ended the companies' deal to develop GNTA's Genasense oblimersen antisense compound for cancer. Also post-market Monday, GNTA reported Phase III data showing that Genasense plus chemotherapy met the primary endpoint of a significant increase in major objective responses compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) (see BioCentury Extra, Monday Nov. 8, 2004). However, the compound did not show significance on any secondary endpoints, including overall survival and time to progression. Also, GNTA said that "reactions leading to death that were specific to the Genasense treatment group" included single cases of renal failure, cytokine release reaction and tumor lysis syndrome. ...