Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. said on Monday it plans to seek approval this year to market kidney cancer drug Nexavar to patients with advanced liver cancer, after a study showed it prolongs their lives, according to Reuters. The shares of Onyx, a U.S. biotechnology company that has a 50/50 partnership with Germany's Bayer Holding AG to develop and sell the medicine, almost doubled on the news. Bayer, a far larger company with an array of marketed products, was little changed. "The liver cancer data increases our confidence that Nexavar will prove active against a broad array of other cancers" and deliver potential annual sales of well over $1 billion, Onyx Chief Executive Officer Hollings Renton said in an interview. Onyx and Bayer on Monday said their late-stage liver cancer study had been stopped after a review by an independent data monitoring committee showed Nexavar had met its primary aims. The surprising results will likely tempt Bayer to acquire Onyx and full rights to the promising medicine, said Vincent Aita, portfolio manager of Kilkenny Capital. "Most investors doubted Nexavar would work against liver cancer because, currently, there are no approved treatments. And now, all the sudden, there is a likelihood it will be approved for the cancer, which creates a huge opportunity for Onyx," Aita said. Aita had expected Nexavar to garner peak annual sales of about $300 million for kidney cancer and believes it can fetch another $300 million for liver cancer. Renton declined to comment on whether Bayer had signaled interest in buying Onyx, or how Onyx might respond to such an overture. "Our intention is to remain a successful and independent biotech company. But in the event anyone makes an effort to take us over, we intend to make it as expensive for them as possible," Renton said. Data from an earlier study among patients with melanoma suggests Nexavar is highly tolerable and therefore might be added to standard treatments for other cancers without appreciably adding to side effects, Renton said. "Our strategy from the early days was to start out using Nexavar against the tough tumors -- kidney and liver -- and then moving against the most common tumors, including colon, lung, breast and ovarian" cancers, Renton said. Nexavar received U.S. approval in late 2005 to treat patients with advanced kidney cancer. The pill, which works against several proteins believed to fuel cancer growth, competes with Pfizer Inc.'s recently approved Sutent kidney-cancer medicine. Neither Bayer nor Onyx provided data from the liver trial, saying it would be presented at a major medical meeting in June. But Renton said the objective of the trial was to prolong patient lives by about 3 months -- meaning about 40 percent beyond the average 7-month life expectancy for patients in advanced stages of the disease. "We are quite confident that Nexavar will be approved for the treatment of primary liver cancer based on the positive statements from the independent data monitoring committee," said Merck Finck analyst Carsten Kunold. Onyx shares were up $11.11, or 91 percent, at $23.37 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq.
