Health and Healthcare

Why Jounce Shares Are Crumbling Ahead of ASCO

Chris Lange

Published: May 17, 2018 10:25 am

Last Updated: January 11, 2020 11:29 pm

Jounce Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: JNCE) watched its shares crumble on Thursday after the firm released data from its midstage cancer trial. This data comes at a pivotal point, not just for Jounce but many other biopharma companies are releasing data and abstracts as well for the upcoming 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting taking place at the beginning of June.

Look for more 24/7 Wall St. coverage for Jounce and other companies leading up to the 2018 ASCO meeting, which will be taking place in Chicago on June 1 to 5, 2018.

This meeting has been known to make or break companies, and in this case, Jounce is the first one to feel the sting.

As for the study, Jounce met its target enrollment for the Phase 1/2 ICONIC trial in its combination cohorts across four solid tumor types: gastric cancer, triple negative breast cancer, head and neck squamous cell cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, with most patients completing at least one efficacy assessment.

Note that updated results, including preliminary efficacy data on all evaluable patients in the trial, will be presented at ASCO. Jounce will be presenting this updated data on June 2.

In terms of the preliminary data, Elizabeth Trehu, M.D., chief medical officer of Jounce, commented:

The preliminary data from patients across multiple solid tumor types enrolled in the ICONIC trial show that JTX-2011 is well-tolerated alone and in combination with nivolumab and has demonstrated evidence of biologic activity and tumor reductions in heavily pre-treated patients who have failed all available therapies. In addition, a potential surrogate biomarker of response has been identified that may help to guide JTX-2011 development. We look forward to continuing clinical development of JTX-2011.

Shares of Jounce were last seen down about 34% at $11.72, with a consensus analyst price target of $34.60 and a 52-week trading range of $11.05 to $29.25.