Dive Brief:
- California-based biotech Avalanche has announced that it will ditch plans for a second phase II trial of its investigational wet AMD treatment AVA-101.
- An initial mid-stage study of the drug produced modest results that sent the company's shares tumbling by a staggering 56% in just one day in June. Avalanche shares are down nearly 14% in early morning trading Friday after the company revealed its plans not to conduct a second trial. UPDATE: The shares are now down nearly 30% since yesterday.
- Avalanche will take AVA-101 back into preclinical studies, and also has a second preclinical compound called AVA-201.
Dive Insight:
Securing investor endorsement is as much an expectations game as anything else—and it's one that Avalanche has been losing steadily since the release of its trial data in June.
AVA-101 is by no means a flop. The treatment was well-tolerated by patients and demonstrated an 11.5-letter improvement in vision tests on trial participants. Unfortunately, that doesn't set the compound apart from existing, blockbuster treatments such as Regeneron's Eylea and Roche's Lucentis.
Since the original trial data was released in June, Avalanche shares have fallen more than 60%.