A Biotech Stock Is Up Nearly 300% After Announcing A Breast Cancer Drug Breakthrough

Shares of Puma Biotechnology are up 296% right now.

On Tuesday evening, the company announced encouraging results from its recent breast cancerdrug trial.

"[A] clinical trial of its experimental drug blocked the return of breast cancer in women with a type of early-stage disease," reported Bloomberg's Robert Langreth. "The drug, neratinib, improved disease-free survival by 33 percent compared with a placebo in a trial of 2,821 women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer, Los Angeles-based Puma said today in a statement."

In its statement, management said it planned to file for marketing approval in the first half of 2015.

Today's rally gives the company a market value of $7 billion.

Here's the language from Puma for you biotech geeks:

LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 22, 2014 - Puma Biotechnology, Inc. (NYSE: PBYI), a development stage biopharmaceutical company, announced top line results from the Phase III clinical trial of Puma's investigational drug PB272 (neratinib) for the extended adjuvant treatment of breast cancer (ExteNET Trial). The ExteNET trial is a double-blind, placebo-controlled, Phase III trial of neratinib versus placebo after adjuvant treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin) in women with early stage HER2-positive breast cancer.

More specifically, the ExteNET trial enrolled 2,821 patients in 41 countries with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer who had undergone surgery and adjuvant treatment with trastuzumab. After completion of adjuvant treatment with trastuzumab, patients were randomized to receive extended adjuvant treatment with either neratinib or placebo for a period of one year. Patients were then followed for recurrent disease, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), or death for a period of two years after randomization in the trial.

The primary endpoint of the trial was disease free survival (DFS). The results of the trial demonstrated that treatment with neratinib resulted in a 33% improvement in disease free survival versus placebo. The hazard ratio was determined to be 0.67 which was statistically significant with a p-value of 0.0046. The secondary endpoint of the trial was disease free survival including ductal carcinoma in situ (DFS-DCIS). The results of the trial demonstrated that treatment with neratinib resulted in a 37% improvement in disease free survival including ductal carcinoma in situ versus placebo. The hazard ratio was determined to be 0.63 which was statistically significant with a p-value of 0.0009. Based on these results from the ExteNET study, Puma plans to file for regulatory approval of neratinib in the extended adjuvant setting in the first half of 2015.

Full results of the ExteNET trial for PB272 will be presented at a future scientific meeting

"We are very pleased with the results of the ExteNET trial with neratinib. This represents the first trial with a HER2 targeted agent that has shown a statistically significant benefit in the extended adjuvant setting, which we believe provides a meaningful point of differentiation for neratinib in the treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer," said Alan H. Auerbach, Chief Executive Officer and President. "While the use of trastuzumab in the adjuvant setting has led to a reduction in disease recurrence in patients with early stage HER2-positive breast cancer, there remains an unmet clinical need for further improvement in outcome in order to attempt to further reduce this risk of recurrence. The results of the ExteNET study demonstrate that we may be able to provide this type of improvement with neratinib to further help the patients with this disease."