Oncothyreon Inc said its development partner Merck KGaA started a late-stage trial of its cancer vaccine in Asia with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), sending Oncothyreon shares up by 10 per cent.

Merck, under a license agreement with Oncothyreon, which posted a wider third-quarter loss partially because of a drop in revenue from its transfer of Stimuvax's manufacture to Merck KGaA a year ago, is developing Stimuvax, an investigational therapeutic cancer vaccine.

Stimuvax is a vaccine meant to encourage an immune response against cells with a protein called MUC1, which is found in lung, breast, prostate and colon cancers.

About 420 patients in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan, are expected to be enrolled under the trial named INSPIRE which is similar in design to the ongoing START trial in patients with NSCLC.

Shares of Oncothyreon rose 10 percent to $5.36 before the bell on Thursday. They closed at $4.87 on Wednesday on Nasdaq.

The three main types of non-small cell lung cancer are squamous cell carcinoma, large cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. It is also the most common type of lung cancer.