Market Playground

By VFC’s Stock House

It’s been a nice couple of weeks for Cel-Sci Corporation’s (AMEX:CVM) Multikine partners.

Late last week Orient Europharma kicked off its portion of the Multikine Phase III trial in Taiwan, and on Monday morning it was announced that Teva has commenced the Israeli portion of the trial as well.

According to a Monday press release from Cel-Sci, Teva will soon begin enrolling patients in a Tel Aviv hospital.

Multikine is Cel-Sci’s flagship product, an immunotherapeutic cancer vaccine that is being investigated in Phase III trials for use in treating head and neck cancer. What makes Multikine unique and superior to already-approved cancer immunotherapies such as Dendreon’s (NASDAQ:DNDN) Provenge, is that it is has ‘off the shelf’ applicability.

As CEO Geert Kersten in a webcast last year, other cancer vaccines need to be produced specifically for the patient, and that’s done only by taking a tumor sample from the patient. With Multikine, that process is not a part of the treatment.

The current worldwide trial is expected to enroll well over 800 patients, and if successful, the company will use that data to seek approvals in multiple countries as a first-line treatment for head and neck cancers.

Also of note, the study of follow-up data from the successful Phase II trials demonstrated that Multikine may also have the potential to lower cholesterol, and do so with no effect on the liver. I’m hesitant to jump on board with the fact that investors should be looking at the possibilities of treating high cholesterol as a key for the future, but one should recognize that there might be some validity to these findings.

The key for Cel-Sci and Multikine is concentrating on the head and neck cancer indication, but if additional trials are going to be conducted for cholesterol levels, then that’s a pretty solid market in itself. It may also provide a back up plan should the current trial not turn out positive.

While trading for a half dollar coin and a market cap of 100 million, CVM still looks like a good speculative buy, in my opinion, because if Multikine makes it past Phase III, then it has blockbuster written all over it.

Just keep in mind that we’re very early in Phase III, so there’s still some time to go before we get a glimpse at the results.

The quiet periods, however, are the ones best used to accumulate.

Disclosure: Long CVM

VFC’s Stock House offers investing opinions, insight and ideas on a variety of different stocks, options and ETF’s, as well as commenting on news that effects the market.