PALM BEACH, Florida, June 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

As the markets head into the typical summer slowdown period, a few pharma and biotech stocks are putting up impressive performances today such as: Moleculin Biotech Inc. (NASDAQ: MBRX), Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXEL), Immunogen, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMGN), Epizyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: EPZM) and Clovis Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ: CLVS)

Moleculin Biotech, Inc., (NASDAQ: MBRX) was up over 29% in morning trading today reaching $1.10 on over 12.4 Million shares traded by 11:10am. Moleculin Biotech, a preclinical pharmaceutical company focused on the development of anti-cancer drug candidates, some of which are based on license agreements with The University of Texas System on behalf of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, today announced the discovery of a metabolic inhibitor with the potential to treat pancreatic cancer. Read this and more news for Moleculin Biotech at http://www.marketnewsupdates.com/news/mbrx.html

"We've received a lot of attention from the scientific community for our glucose decoy technology (WP1122 Portfolio, Moleculin Presents Preclinical Data of Novel Inhibitor of Glycolysis at 28th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, December 13, 2016) as a potential means to starve tumors to death by exploiting their hyper-dependence on glycolysis for energy production," commented Walter Klemp, Chairman and CEO of Moleculin, "and now we have identified possible new properties of our compound WP1234, a modification to WP1122. In pre-clinical testing, WP1234 has shown improved drug characteristics when compared with WP1122 and a 20 to 50-fold greater ability to kill pancreatic cancer cell lines when compared with traditional inhibitors of glycolysis. We know that pancreatic cancer thrives even in a reduced oxygen environment, which indicates it may be highly dependent on glycolysis to survive. This discovery now makes WP1234 a promising drug candidate to be studied for the treatment of pancreatic cancer."

Mr. Klemp continued: "Pancreatic cancer is still considered largely untreatable, so even modest gains in treating this disease could represent a significant clinical benefit. WP1234 improves on known inhibitors for glycolysis by increasing drug circulation time, which should increase the potential for drug uptake by and destruction of tumor cells. We are excited about the potential to pursue development opportunities with WP1234 for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. We are also pleased to report that this discovery was the direct result of our ongoing collaboration with MD Anderson Cancer Center and the science team there will be presenting detailed findings to the scientific community in the near future."

In other market activity of note today in the pharma/biotech markets: 

Exelixis, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXEL) was up over 5% in morning trading today at $23.60 on over 3.2 million shares traded by 11:10am. Exelixis this week announced that the analysis of the review by a blinded independent radiology review committee (IRC) has confirmed the primary efficacy endpoint results of investigator-assessed progression-free survival (PFS) from the CABOSUN randomized phase 2 trial of cabozantinib as compared with sunitinib in patients with previously untreated advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) with intermediate- or poor-risk disease per the International Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma Database Consortium (IMDC). Per the IRC analysis, cabozantinib demonstrated a clinically meaningful and statistically significant reduction in the rate of disease progression or death as measured by PFS. Exelixis remains on target to complete a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for cabozantinib as a treatment of first-line advanced renal cell carcinoma in the third quarter of 2017.

ImmunoGen, Inc. (NASDAQ: IMGN) was up over 7% in morning trading today reaching $5.85 on over 3.1 Million shares traded by 11:10am. ImmunoGen is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that develops targeted cancer therapeutics using its proprietary ADC technology. ImmunoGen's lead product candidate, mirvetuximab soravtansine, is in a Phase 3 trial for FRα-positive platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, and is in Phase 1b/2 testing in combination regimens for earlier-stage disease.

Epizyme, Inc. (NASDAQ: EPZM) was up over 8% in morning trading today reaching $14.85 by 11:10am.  Epizyme, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company creating novel epigenetic therapies, last week announced positive interim efficacy data from the company's ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial of tazemetostat, a first-in-class, oral EZH2 inhibitor, as a single-agent treatment for relapsed or refractory patients with follicular lymphoma (FL) or diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) grouped by EZH2 mutational status. The data were presented today during a plenary session at the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML), which is being held June 14-17, 2017 in Lugano, Switzerland. In addition, data from a 62-gene panel biomarker study of tazemetostat in patients with various subtypes of non-Hodgkin lymphoma will be presented during a poster session at the conference

Clovis Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLVS) was up in morning trading today reaching $90.16 on over 3 Million shares traded by 11:10am. Clovis Oncology is a biopharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, developing and commercializing innovative anti-cancer agents in the U.S., Europe and additional international markets. Clovis Oncology targets development programs at specific subsets of cancer populations, and simultaneously develops, with partners, diagnostic tools intended to direct a compound in development to the population that is most likely to benefit from its use.

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