Printing "cancer cure" on the front page of a major newspaper is like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, as the New York Times found to its dismay last spring. The treatment in question, a combination of two drugs called angiostatin and endostatin, works only in mice so far, and while the newspaper noted that lots of medicines fail to make the leap from rodents to humans, the caveats were easily overlooked. Shares in Entremed, the small company developing the drugs, shot up 30% literally overnight.
But now the caveats are coming home to roost. Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Entremed's partner in...