The decision was made after a third party pointed out to the conference’s organizers that the clinical data and trial data results from a mid-range study in Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) brought about by the company’s experimental drug IMMU-132 was already previously presented by the Immunomedics’ Founder and Chief Scientific Officer David Goldenberg and CEO Cynthia Sullivan during a recent conference call with investors. Here, they stated the importance of the presentation of these results at the ASCO conference as well as other pertinent information such as the Breakthrough Therapy Designation granted by the FDA and their hopes of winning an approval of the company’s first manufactured anti-cancer drug.
Organizers of the said conference further discovered that these data and trial results were included in a press release issued by the company in April. They also learned that the actual presentation slides were published by the company on its websites. ASCO organizers pointed out that these actions made by the company were in direct violation to the conference’s strict confidentiality policy which states that any and all clinical data submitted to the organization are not to be released nor discussed by the company to anyone until the presentation during the actual conference.
“Since the confidentiality of this abstract was violated, the abstract and presentation has been removed from the meeting and will no longer be featured in our press program,” ASCO’s Program Coordinator in the Science Communications, Alise Fisher informed The Economic Calendar and other media outlets.
Sullivan had released a statement immediately after the announcement that they are now taking steps to reverse the decision made by ASCO Organizers.
“The presenter, Dr. Bardia, and I are attempting to reverse this with ASCO, because we believe that the results reported in April were different from those in the ASCO abstract submitted last February. Both we and our many investigators involved are disappointed that our excellent therapeutic results, achieving an interim median survival of about 14 months, may not be presented at this meeting. These results are very encouraging for TNBC patients with metastatic disease who failed multiple prior therapies.”
Following the announcement, many investors decided to sell out their shares with Immunomedics, causing stocks of the cancer drug developing company to fall 18 percent to $4.35.
In an article published in the Motley Fool, Todd Campbell pointed out that this was due to the fact that many investors who invested in Immunomedics did that because they hoped their shares would rise after the ASCO conference. Campbell goes on, however, to discourage investors from selling their shares following the company’s mishap with ASCO, as this could be a bad move. Immunomedics’ new drug may have a huge potential which, in the long run, will determine the company’s success or failure.
