Bluebird Bio Inc. (NASDAQ: BLUE) absolutely tanked in Monday’s trading session, based on preclinical and manufacturing data from CAR T oncology programs at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting. The data were not necessarily favorable, and this appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, as most analysts are choosing not to defend Bluebird Bio, with the exception of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

In the results, the company suggested that patients were only able to produce small quantities of normal functioning red blood cells. Apart from this, the conclusion was that the results would be insufficient to positively impact their disease.

Merrill Lynch detailed in its report:

Updated data presented at the ASH meeting for BB305 for sickle cell disease (SCD) were mixed and raised questions on its long-term success and approvability. One SCD patient from HGB-205 has remained transfusion-independent for >9 months, with 49% of anti-sickling hemoglobin (47% HbAT87Q+2% HbF) and has been free of SCD-related events. While this is encouraging, as >30% anti-sickling hemoglobin is typically associated with meaningful benefit, data from two additional SCD patients from the HGB-206 study disappointed. Anti-sickling hemoglobin was 16% (12% HbAT87Q + 4%HbF) at 6 months and 17% (4% HbAT87Q + 13% HbF) at 3 months post-transplant and Grade 3 vaso-occlusive crisis, Grade 4 bacteremia and Grade 3/4 non-hematologic AEs (fever, mouth pain, mucositis, febrile neutropenia, anorexia, fatigue, dyspnea) were seen. While longer follow-up could show a gradual increase of HbAT87Q, we remain skeptical that a 30% HbAT87Q mark can be reached/maintained in these patients. BLUE believes increased myeloablation could optimize engraftment, translating to better efficacy, though it will take time to implement these new processes. We have lowered our peak sales assumptions and approval probability for SCD (from 42% to 29%). We are downgrading to Neutral and reduce our PO to $102 from $149.

A few other analysts recently weighed in on Bluebird as well:

• Janney Montgomery Scott downgraded it to a Hold rating with a $62 price target.
• Jefferies has a $96 price target.
• Morgan Stanley downgraded it to Equal Weight from Overweight and lowered its price target to $69 from $143.
• Roth Capital downgraded it to Neutral from Buy and lowered the price target to $62 from $121.
• Wedbush has an Outperform rating and cut its price target to $117 from $165.

So far in 2015, prior to this current move, Bluebird had underperformed the market with the stock down nearly 9%. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock was actually up 99%.

Shares of Bluebird were last seen trading down about 38% to $51.79, with a consensus analyst price target of $156.82 and a 52-week trading range of $45.24 to $197.35.

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