Cervical Cancer Vaccine Wars Heating Up (GSK, MRK)

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK-NYSE/ADR) has just announced more positive data on its cervical cancer vaccine called CERVARIX(R).  The company has said that it demonstrated 100% protection against "HPV" (Human Papillomavirus-type 16 & 18) for precancerous lesions for more than 5-years.  GSK has also said that the study results also show evidence of additional protection against infections with other cancer-causing virus types.

The GSK cervical cancer candidate vaccine also showed 68 percent vaccine efficacy against precancerous lesions (CIN2+) and 38 percent vaccine efficacy against abnormal Pap smears, regardless of the type of cancer-causing virus detected.  This was also effective in other forms of cancers and the study group was a double-blind, controlled trial of 1,113 young women aged 15-25 years of age.  This extended follow-up study looked at study endpoints for 776 women from the same cohort of women for a period of up to 67 months in 28 centers in Brazil, Canada and the U.S.

Merck (MRK-NYSE) this morning has said that its GARDISIL(R) lasts for at least 5-years.

Both vaccines have more than enough room to be considered "blockbuster" drugs, although Merck has been the beneficiary of being the only true vaccine on market.  As a reminder, at least Merck (maybe GSK too) is either conducting trials or plan to conduct trials soon to see if this can vaccinate men as well.  Those test results are pretty far out from today though.

Jon C. Ogg
April 17, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.