Ava­lo fails asth­ma PhII with lead can­di­date, shares crater

Ava­lo Ther­a­peu­tics, a biotech work­ing on im­munol­o­gy, said its lead can­di­date failed a Phase II study test­ing the treat­ment in a spe­cif­ic type of asth­ma — and the re­sults sent shares crash­ing 85%.

The biotech said Mon­day morn­ing that AVTX-002 did not re­duce asth­ma-re­lat­ed events in pa­tients with poor­ly con­trolled non-eosinophilic asth­ma. The place­bo-con­trolled tri­al that en­rolled 91 pa­tients test­ed 600 mg of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion­al mon­o­clon­al an­ti­body tar­get­ing LIGHT, an im­munoreg­u­la­to­ry cy­tokine with two sig­nal­ing re­cep­tors: HVEM and lym­pho­tox­in β. Pa­tients were dosed three times over 12 weeks.

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