Is This the End for XOMA?

The company announced the Phase 3 EYEGUARD-B study of gevokizumab in patients with Behcet’s disease uveitis did not meet the primary endpoint of time to first acute ocular exacerbation. The study was conducted by XOMA’s partner Servier, an independent French pharmaceutical research company driven by the pursuit of innovative drugs.

Gevokizumab appeared to be well tolerated in the trial. Adverse events were comparable between gevokizumab and placebo treated groups.

Others involved in the study noted that the initial observations seen in the secondary endpoints were clinically important and meaningful to both clinicians and Behcet’s disease uveitis patients.

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Paul Rubin MD, senior vice president in Research and Development and chief medical officer said:

Although the study did not achieve its main objective, we did see signals of drug activity such as preserved visual acuity, less severe ocular exacerbations and a reduced incidence of reported macular edema in patients treated with gevokizumab. We will continue to work closely with our partner, Servier, and uveitis experts to conduct a thorough analysis of the data to fully understand gevokizumab’s impact on several clinically relevant endpoints.

Separately, John Varian, chief executive of XOMA, said:

In recent years, our public focus has been on gevokizumab. However, during that time, we have significantly advanced other assets in our pipeline including XOMA 358, for which we completed a positive Phase 1 study showing it is active in down-regulating the insulin receptor and shows potential in treating patients who experience endogenous over-production of insulin, and XOMA 089, our late preclinical anti-TGFβ monoclonal antibody with potential in immuno-oncology and fibrosis,” “We will focus our efforts on creating value with these pipeline assets and reduce expenses where appropriate. While we continue to evaluate the data from EYEGUARD-B, the EYEGUARD-A and C studies, in the broader range of non-infectious uveitis, are still recruiting.

Prior to this drop, XOMA was performing better than even Apple on the year, with shares up over 22% year to date.

Shares of XOMA dropped to a new 52-week low $0.85 Wednesday morning, and on last look were down around 68% to $1.39. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $9.17 and a 52-week high to $5.95.

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