The Best Small Cap Metastatic Cancer Stocks? AVEO, ONCS & MTST

Small cap biotech stocks AVEO Pharmaceuticals, Inc (NASDAQ: AVEO), OncoSec Medical Inc (OTCMKTS: ONCS) and MetaStat Inc (OTCBB: MTST) are focused on or are developing treatments or diagnostic technologies for metastatic cancers. In case you aren't familiar with the term metastasis or metastatic, it's the spread of cancer from its primary site to other places in the body as cancer cells break away from a primary tumor, penetrate into lymphatic and blood vessels, circulate through the bloodstream and then grow in a new focus (metastasize) in normal tissues elsewhere in the body. In other words, it's a dangerous form of cancer, but there are some small cap biotech stocks targeting it for diagnostics or treatment:

AVEO Pharmaceuticals. Founded on a unique drug discovery and development approach called the Human Response Platform, AVEO Pharmaceuticals is a cancer therapeutics company committed to discovering, developing and commercializing targeted therapies. Back in June, AVEO Pharmaceuticals announced that it had received a Complete Response letter from the FDA denying approval in its present form the New Drug Application (NDA) for AVEO's investigational agent tivozanib for the treatment of patients with advanced metastatic renal cell carcinoma as they want an additional clinical study. AVEO Pharmaceuticals then announced a major strategic restructuring to refocus efforts on the on-going clinical development of tivozanib in colorectal and breast cancer and on the advancement of other key pipeline and preclinical assets.

The company also got a subpoena from the SEC for documents related to the drug – meaning its been a rather messy summer at AVEO for employees and investors alike. Whether its a value play remains to be seen as it may take some time for the company to get back on track. On Thursday, small cap fell 4.19% to $2.17 (AVEO has a 52 week trading range of $2.10 to $11.45 a share) for a market cap of $112.75 million plus the stock is down 72% since the start of the year, down 78% over the past year and down 75.9% since March 2010.

OncoSec Medical Inc. A biotech company focused on creating treatments for advanced-stage skin cancer, OncoSec Medical focuses on three cure-resistant and all-too-often fatal skin cancers: melanoma, Merkel cell lymphoma, and cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. OncoSec Medical's website notes that one in five Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime and that 10,000 will die this year. To combat such cancers, OncoSec Medical has developed proprietary technology based on electroporation, a process that opens temporary pores in the cell membrane of infected cells through which an anti-cancer agent can be transmitted more effectively. In June, the company announced interim immune response data from the company's Phase II study of ImmunoPulse in patients with metastatic melanoma and that findings showed that ImmunoPulse demonstrated a significant change in tumor immunity following treatment with DNA IL-12 and electroporation. On Thursday, small cap OncoSec Medical fell 0.62% to $0.321 (ONCS has a 52 week trading range of $0.18 to $0.49 a share) for a market cap of $28.38 million plus the stock is up 50.7% since the start of the year, up 68.1% over the past year and down 78.9% since April 2011.

MetaStat Inc. Focused on developing and commercializing novel diagnostic technologies and therapeutics for the early and reliable prediction and treatment of systemic metastasis, MetaStat's 15 plus years of collaboration with four scientific/academic institutions has led to the company to develop a licensed proprietary platform of technologies based on the identification of a common pathway for the development of metastatic disease in solid epithelial-based tumors. This collaboration revolves around the discoveries that: The "MetaSite™," the micro-anatomical site, or "window" in the blood vessels that metastatic cells squeeze through to enter the blood stream to begin their deadly spread. The pivotal role of the Mena protein and its isoforms in the metastatic cascade.

MetaStat is developing two function-based diagnostic product lines: 1) MetaSite Breast™ test to target breast cancers and 2) The MenaCalc™ a platform of diagnostic assays which will be broadly applicable in solid epithelial-based cancers (including breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancers). Besides these product lines, MetaStat is developing the MenaBloc™ therapeutic platform with the goal of discovering the inhibitors of the Mena pathway that can be advanced as anti-cancer therapeutics. On Thursday, small cap MetaStat fell 6.25% to $1.50 for a market cap of $32.2 million.

Of course, investing in small cap biotech stocks aren't for the risk adverse, but AVEO Pharmaceuticals, OncoSec Medical and MetaStat and their technologies and treatments just might be worth taking a closer look at.