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By Kamal Choudhury and Padmanabhan Ananthan
(Reuters) -Corcept Therapeutics said on Monday its experimental drug in combination with chemotherapy helped delay progression of a type of ovarian cancer in a late-stage trial.
The company's shares surged about 89% to a record high of $103.30, on track to add about $5.14 billion to the company's market value, if gains hold.
The drug, relacorilant, in combination with chemotherapy, helped patients live a month longer without their disease worsening and reduced the risk of cancer progression by 30% in ovarian cancer patients who were resistant to platinum-based chemotherapy treatments, compared with those on chemotherapy alone, meeting one of the main goals of the study.
Current treatment options for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC) include AbbVie's Elahere and Roche's Avastin.
Elahere, which recorded sales of $479 million in 2024, is approved for some patients with PROC whose cancer exhibits high levels of a specific protein.
Corcept's trial hit a home run, H.C. Wainwright analyst Swayampakula Ramakanth said, adding that relacorilant could potentially receive a broader label than Elahere.
In the trial that enrolled 381 patients, the drug combination also showed significant improvement in overall survival, the second main goal, with patients living for an average of 16 months since the start of the treatment, compared with 11.5 months for those on chemotherapy alone.
The drug was well tolerated with no new safety concerns, Corcept said, adding that it planned to present full study results in the coming months and file a marketing application in the U.S. in the third quarter of this year.
Relacorilant, an oral therapy, works by blocking cortisol, a stress hormone, which helps tumors resist chemotherapy, according to the company.
Ovarian cancer affects more than 200,000 women in the U.S. each year, of which about 20,000 cases are classified as platinum-resistant, according to the National Cancer Institute.
(Reporting by Kamal Choudhury, Padmanabhan Ananthan and Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva and Shounak Dasgupta)
