German biotech Agennix ($AGX) lost most of its market value after revealing Monday that its most advanced compound fared worse than placebo in a late-stage trial for treating non-small cell lung cancer. And Phase III fiasco has put the future existence of the operation in question, Bloomberg reports.
Agennix shares plunged more than 70% as many investors gave the company slim chances of surviving the disaster. Its market cap fell to €27.7 million ($34.4 million), according to Google Finance.
The company's immunotherapy talactoferrin missed the main goal of improving overall survival of patients with lung cancer, as those on the experimental protein drug lived for an average of 7.5 months compared with 7.7 months for patients in the placebo arm. With no other late-stage contenders in its pipeline, the developer plans to take action to lower costs and plot a new path forward, according to its press release. And the biotech's financial chief Torsen Hombeck told Bloomberg that all options, including winding down operations, are on the table.
"The talactoferrin story is over," Igor Kim, an analyst with Close Brothers Seydler Research in Frankfurt, told Bloomberg. The analyst believes that a merger with another company is the best way forward for the company.
- here's the Agennix release
- read Bloomberg's article