EntreMed Stock Rides Wave of Optimism About 2 Drugs

The stock of EntreMed Inc., which is developing a promising new cancer treatment, leaped from $12 to $85 at one point Monday, even as doctors cautioned against getting too excited about something that has been tested only on mice.

EntreMed’s stock price finished more than four times higher than Friday’s close--a major boon to a company that had sales of $4.8 million last year and hasn’t shown a profit since it was founded in 1991. The stock, which had traded at $12 on Friday, hit $85 at one point Monday and closed at $51.81.

The treatment involves two newly developed drugs, called Angiostatin and Endostatin, that are designed to choke off tumors’ blood supply. Scientists watched mice with huge tumors respond dramatically to these injections. Their tumors shrank and then went away entirely, and it seemed to work for all sorts of cancer.

EntreMed’s stock soared because an article in Sunday’s New York Times made more people aware of its research, not because of new scientific findings, said Nelson Campbell, chief financial officer of the small biotech company. EntreMed shares rose 28% to $15.25 on Nov. 28 when the company published results of an Endostatin study in the journal Nature.

“The buzzword ‘cure for cancer’ --once the public saw that, people got overly excited,” said Kurt Funderburg, an analyst with Ferris Baker Watts in Baltimore. Funderburg suggests long-term investors hold onto the stock but advises short-term stockholders to collect now.

If everything goes right, Rockville, Md.-based EntreMed will be ready to ask the Food and Drug Administration to begin testing the cancer drug Endostatin on humans in 12 to 18 months, Campbell said. And then it could be years before those tests are completed and the FDA can approve the drug.