Asco 2009 looks set to belong to the small biotech company. Whilst this year’s meeting of the world’s oncologists may not have contained the eagerly anticipated trial results relating to the biggest cancer drugs seen in recent conferences, it certainly has provided an opportunity for a large number of small companies to remind investors of the commercial and partnership potential of their pipeline cancer products.

EP Vantage’s special edition EventAnalyzer of Asco 2009 not only helps to easily identify this year’s winners and losers from the 4,000 abstracts presented, it reveals the extent to which the meeting has sparked a timely wave of shareholder optimism, albeit for many companies previously at rock-bottom valuations. The average share price gain was 81% for the top twenty winners whereas just five companies registered much more moderate losses (see table below). Antigenics was the overall winner with a four-fold rise in share price on the back of encouraging interim survival data for kidney cancer vaccine, Oncophage.