Syn­dax shares soar as lead drug clears a mid-stage can­cer drug study hur­dle

Brig­gs Mor­ri­son has good rea­son to­day to be glad he left the Big Phar­ma R&D world be­hind at As­traZeneca and switched to biotech. The CEO of Waltham, MA-based Syn­dax re­port­ed that the com­pa­ny’s lead drug in com­bi­na­tion with Mer­ck’s Keytru­da cleared its first big hur­dle in Phase II and will now tran­si­tion in­to the sec­ond phase of the study.

News of the suc­cess with its HDAC in­hibitor enti­no­s­tat, which in­volves at least a few par­tial or com­plete re­spons­es in pa­tients, de­liv­ered a whop­ping 55% spike to its share price $SNDX. But as the day wore on, that surge mod­er­at­ed some­what. The stock closed up 44%.

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