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EntreMed shares tested
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February 10, 1999: 10:10 a.m. ET
Shares fall nearly 50% after Bristol-Myers says it's stopping work on cancer drug
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Judging from the tumble in EntreMed's stock price Wednesday morning, investors clearly weren't buying the drug company's spin on news that Bristol-Myers Squibb, its deep-pocket collaborator on the development of anti-cancer drug angiostatin, was stopping its work on the drug because it no longer met its criteria for development.
Soon after the New York Stock Exchange opened, shares of EntreMed (ENMD) had plummeted nearly 50 percent, down 11-3/4 at 12-3/4. Bristol-Myers' (BMY) stock was up by 1/2 at 123.
EntreMed's chairman and CEO, Dr. John Holaday, told CNNfn that Bristol-Myers' withdrawal is a modification of its agreement with EntreMed and does not represent a loss for his company.
"I would say it's an opportunity. We're firmly engaged in the process of trying to win the war on cancer. And I think in the long run the people who will benefit from this are the cancer patients as well as our shareholders," said Holaday.
In response to allegations that Bristol-Myers pulled out because it realized it would take too long to make money off of EntreMed's work, he noted that the process for most new drugs to come to market takes about 12 years and $320 million. "We're only three or four years into that process," he said, adding that over 92 medical journals have confirmed angiostatin's biological effects and that his company is still planning to put the drug into clinical trials by the end of the calendar year.
In May 1998, shares of EntreMed soared by as much as 300 percent at one point after the biotech firm announced that two drugs it was developing - angiostatin and endostatin - when combined, cured cancer in mice by choking off blood supply to tumors. 
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