Goldman Sachs Previews ASCO Cancer Conference With Amgen, Celgene And Clovis Oncology

Ahead of the May 29 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, analysts at Goldman Sachs reviewed the outlook for some of biotech's hottest names: Amgen, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN), Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) and Clovis Oncology Inc (NASDAQ: CLVS). Goldman has Buy ratings on both Amgen and Clovis, while placing a Sell rating on Celgene.

At the ASCO conference, Goldman said it will be watching Amgen's Phase III myeloma drug, Kyprolis, and its competitor, Velcade. Specifically, Goldman will look at "incremental details of safety/tolerability vs. Velcade," as well as whether Amgen will be able to improve Kyprolis' dosing, currently at twice a week, to match Velcade's once-a-week dosing.

Velcade is a brand name product approved for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma.

Clovis Oncology will present updated lung cancer data, according to Goldman's outlook. The analysts said they would like to see how certain lung cancer patients react to Clovis' Roci lung cancer data. Depending how the results play out, Goldman said that it could be an important point of differentiation between the Roci data and AstraZeneca plc's (NYSE: AZN) competitor, AZD9291.

Goldman also previewed Celgene's presentation, which it said would focus on an accelerated timeline for its lymphoma drug's, Revlimid, Phase III trial. However, Goldman said that that announcement in and of itself would not be a "meaningful catalyst."

Ahead of the conference, Goldman said that presentations will be posted online on May 13 at 5 p.m. ET.

This year, Clovis Oncology has outperformed Celgene and Amgen by large margins. Clovis gained 42.4 percent as of Tuesday's closing price of $79.72; Amgen was flat at $159.44; and Celgene fell 3.9 percent.