The company sought to develop a vaccine for cancer, and had candidates for melanoma reach phase III clinical trials.
-Specific Active Immunotherapy: The generation of cell-mediated and antibody immune responses focused on specific antigens expressed by the cancer cells.
[6] However, on October 3, 2005, CancerVax announced the discontinuation of its Phase 3 clinical trial of Canvaxin in patients with Stage III melanoma.
The decision followed the recommendation of the independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) with oversight responsibility for the clinical trial.
The DSMB decided, based upon the data reviewed at the third interim analysis, that it was unlikely that the trial would provide significant evidence of a survival benefit for Canvaxin-treated patients versus those receiving placebo.
[7] The unsuccessful results of these clinical trials prompted CancerVax to say it would cut payroll by more than half to roughly 80 employees from 183.
[8] CancerVax Corporation's competitive strategy revolved around targeting large disease markets with significant unmet medical needs.
They retained worldwide commercialization rights to Canvaxin and intended to market it through their own sales force or co-promote it in the United States while establishing strategic collaborations abroad.
Three months after the poor Phase III data forced it to suspend work on Canvaxin, CancerVax agreed to team up with Micromet, a private German company, in a buyout valued at $126.7 million.
The deal allowed Micromet access to leverage CancerVax's existing U.S. public company infrastructure, and added a preclinical candidate for solid tumors to their product portfolio.