Gilead’s stock tumbles toward biggest selloff in more than nine years as lung-cancer trial disappoints
Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc.
GILD,
tumbled 9.7% early Monday, pulling back from an 11-month high after the biotechnology company reported disappointing lung-cancer trial results.
The selloff put the stock in danger of its biggest one-day decline since it plunged 14.3% on Dec. 22, 2014.
Gilead said a late-stage study of the antibody-drug conjugate Trodelvy failed to meet its primary endpoint of overall survival in patients with previously treated metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. Roughly 80% to 85% of lung cancers diagnosed are non-small-cell lung cancer.
The study, which evaluated Trodelvy against the chemotherapy docetaxel, found a more than three-month difference in median overall survival favoring Trodelvy in patients who did not respond to prior therapy with immune-checkpoint inhibitors, although that magnitude of difference was not seen in patients who did respond to the prior therapy, Gilead said.
Meanwhile, Trodelvy was well tolerated and no new safety signals were identified. Gilead said it plans to discuss the results of the trial with regulators.
The results are “a setback,” but Trodelvy’s potential as a first-line therapy remains intact given previous clinical-trial results, BMO Capital Markets analysts said in a note Monday.
“The totality of our data gives us continued confidence in Trodelvy’s potential in metastatic NSCLC, and in our broader lung cancer clinical development program,” Gilead’s chief medical officer, Merdad Parsey, said in a statement.
Trodelvy was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year for patients with certain types of breast cancer, and in 2021 the drug received accelerated approval for certain patients with urothelial cancer.
Antibody-drug conjugates, in which a monoclonal antibody is linked to a small-molecule drug, have garnered considerable interest from major drugmakers in recent months. ADCs have helped fuel recent deals such as GSK PLC’s
GSK,
licensing agreements with Chinese biopharma company Hansoh Pharma and AbbVie Inc.’s
ABBV,
acquisition of ImmunoGen Inc. Gilead added Trodelvy to its portfolio through its 2020 acquisition of Immunomedics.
Gilead’s stock is down 3.6% in the year to date, while the S&P 500
SPX
has gained 2%.
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