It has been a busy week for Hutchison China MediTech (HCM) at the annual conference of the American Society of Hematology. The biotech group presented data from three different cancer drugs and investors have responded well; the share price is already up 19 per cent on our week-old buy tip.
Ongoing phase two trials into epitinib and fruquintinib, the group's two non-small-cell lung cancer drugs, have already demonstrated some pleasing results. Epitinib has the potential to be the most effective 'first choice' treatment for the disease, which would give it access to a huge patient population, while fruquintinib has a superior safety profile to competitors. There was also good news for early-stage treatment HMPL-523, which has the potential to enhance the efficacy of certain chemotherapy drugs.
