Halozyme Therapeutics CEO On Company's New Drug That Can Transform The Way Pancreatic Cancer Patients Are Treated

Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. HALO has developed a new drug called PEGPH 20 which is changing the way pancreatic cancer patients are treated.

Helen Torley, Halozyme Therapeutics CEO, was on CNBC Monday to shed more light on the drug and the success it has had.

PEGPH 20

“Some patients with pancreatic cancer have a sugar,” Torley said. “It is around the cells and between the cells and it creates that barrier to cancer therapies being able to get to the cancer to work. So, our drug which is called PEGPH 20 breaks down that sugar and it basically allows the cancer therapies to [getting with it] to get access to where it needs to work.”

Success Ratio

Torley was asked what kind of percentage of pancreatic cancer patients has PEGPH 20 tested successfully on during trials. She replied, “We have just reported our results from our phase-2 study. They are interim results, in that study it looked like about 50 percent of patients had high levels of this sugar called hyaluronan and in those patients, the time for the patients to progress was about 9 month now that when they got received our drug.”

“For the patient who didn’t receive our drug, they progressed in about 4 months. So, that really for pancreatic cancer patients who have a median survival of just 6 months is exciting and encouraging data.”

Pricing

On what would be the price of the drug, Torley said, “We haven’t got a price yet. We are just entering our phase III studies. We will begin that in the beginning of 2016.”