Disappointing cancer data triggers sharp drop in Peregrine shares

On Friday morning you would have had to dig deep into Peregrine Pharmaceuticals' release on its data for its lung cancer drug bavituximab, but once in you would have found that the progression-free survival rate for patients was dangerously close to a chemo-only control arm. To be precise, the drug arm demonstrated a PFS rate of 6.7 months compared with 6.4 months for the current standard treatment. Most investors managed to make it through the details, as Peregrine's shares ($PPHM) dropped by close to a third. "The unexpected long progression-free estimate for the control arm based on central reads confounds our ability to fully interpret this secondary efficacy endpoint," the company noted. Story