Lit­tle Stem­line grabs a big ‘break­through’ ti­tle for its piv­otal-stage can­cer drug

Back at the big AS­CO meet­ing in Chica­go last June, lit­tle New York-based Stem­line Ther­a­peu­tics $STML was large­ly left on the side­lines by a few big acts in on­col­o­gy R&D that hogged the spot­light. But its snap­shot of high­ly promis­ing Phase II da­ta for a lead drug didn’t es­cape the at­ten­tion of the FDA, which has now blessed its work with a break­through drug des­ig­na­tion.

The BTD was pro­vid­ed for SL-401, and the news trig­gered a 20% spike in the com­pa­ny’s share price. Stem­line got its IPO out at the be­gin­ning of the biotech boom in 2013 and pros­pered on Nas­daq. But like a lot of biotechs, the com­pa­ny is now trad­ing for far less than half of its two-year high af­ter in­vestors re­cal­i­brat­ed their think­ing about risk and po­ten­tial re­wards in the last six months.

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