Celgene Shares Higher On Positive Crohn's Patient Data

Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) shares are up a modest 1.2 percent in Mondays session after the company’s United European Gastroenterology Week (UEGW) abstract revealed wide-spread activity for mongersen (GED-301) among Crohn’s patients.

Although the full data will not be available until Tuesday, Credit Suisse analyst Alethia Young is optimistic about what it will reveal.

The abstract data seems to validate mongersen activity in Crohn’s patients starting at just 12 weeks, which is a relatively early point in the treatment program.

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Young noted that one of the biggest criticisms of the NEJM Phase II data was that the patients' symptoms were on the mild end of the moderate scale. She pointed out that the Phase Ib patient population seems to have much more severe symptoms, with 46 percent of them having been on anti-TNFs prior to the study. In addition, the CDAI baseline for the patient population was 294 versus only 243 for the previous NEJM data.

In the new data, 37 percent of patients evaluable at week 12 demonstrated an endoscopic improvement of at least 25 percent in their SES-CD score.

“We are looking for data on the sub-groups and biomarkers in the full data on Tuesday, but from speaking to the company we think data will look fairly consistent,” Young added.

Credit Suisse remains optimistic about Celgene’s stock as well. The firm maintains an Outperform rating and $140 price target.

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